America's Plan to Reward Iran, Without Lifting Sanctions

One of the several dilemmas facing Obama administration officials in their chess match with Iran is this: At what point do they meet serious Iranian nuclear concessions (assuming, as I don't, that these concessions are in the offing) with actual sanctions relief? If Iran shows itself willing to scale back dramatically its stockpiles of enriched uranium, or give up a substantial number of its centrifuges, wouldn't the U.S. have to meet such gestures by lifting of at least some sanctions?

And here lies a problem -- many of the Americans involved in these negotiations believe that any sanctions relief at all would lead to the quick crumbling of the entire sanctions program. Pull one brick out of the sanctions wall, I've heard it said repeatedly, and the entire edifice crumbles. Certainly, this is the Israeli position. Many countries, and many companies, are eager to see the sanctions disintegrate, and they would take any American move to provide even the tiniest bit of relief to Iran as a sign that the crisis is over, and that they can go back to business as usual. We may be, right now, at (to borrow a phrase) peak sanctions. It only gets harder from here for the Obama administration to hold the line.