Ramin is an Iranian leprechaun, if such a thing is possible–born a Muslim but converted to Judaism when he married Roya. He’s on the Yale University medical faculty, a poet and writer. He does favor regime change, but through peaceful means–and he has trained more than 200 young Iranians in nonviolence workshops. His students have gone home to lead the Tehran street protests in recent years. So I asked with some trepidation, “What do you think of the deal?”

It’s fantastic!” Ramin said, with a slightly naughty smile. “It’s very positive.” Really? “Yes,” he said. “It totally undermines the regime’s credibility.” For years, the hard-liners who actually run the show–the Supreme Leader and his Revolutionary Guards Corps generals–have presented America as the Great Satan. It was the prime rationale for repression: order and discipline were necessary to meet the U.S. threat. This was an argument that seemed to hold little water with the majority of Iranians, who favor reform; in my experience, and according to some polls, Iranians are the most pro-American Muslims in the region. Western news and culture–fed by satellite dishes, which are ubiquitous–are dominant in the society. “The question is,” Ramin went on, “how can America remain the Great Satan if you’re making deals with them?” That’s why people were dancing in the streets of Tehran. “It was the prospect of a better economy, for sure, but it was also the hope that this was the beginning of the end of the Islamic Republic.”