Obama's Grand Bargain With Iran Is a Non-Starter

there are high structural barriers to Iran reentering the regional system. The nuclear agreement only addresses these barriers indirectly—by stopping the economic damage of sanctions and creating the possibility of fuller cooperation with Russia and China, it can eventually make itself stronger. But as long as its neighbors see that strength as fundamentally threatening, it will only be able to make gains using naked force. The Iranians may soon discover the truth of Chesterton’s adage about fascism: used alone, without legitimacy, raw power “is the weakest thing in the world.” In regional geopolitics, the deal is simply not that big of a deal.