To prove that Americans can be every bit as crazy as Iranians, I took my daughter along on my last visit to Iran, in 2012, for a road trip across the country.

Iranians were stunned to see a 14-year-old Yankee teenybopper in their midst. In Mashhad, a conservative Islamic city that might seem wary of Americans, three Iranian women in black chadors accosted my daughter — and then invited her to a cafe where they plied her with ice cream, marvelling at her and kissing her on the cheek as she ate.

They were not political, but they yearned for Iran to be a normal country again.

As the Iranian nuclear talks creep on into double overtime, let us remember that this is not only about centrifuges, but also about creating some chance over time of realigning the Middle East and bringing Iran out of the cold. It is a long shot, yes, but it is one reason Saudi Arabia is alarmed, along with Iranian hardliners themselves. Those hardliners survive on a narrative of conflict with the West and depriving them of that narrative undermines them.

It is odd to be debating a deal that has not been reached, but frankly, critics are mostly right in their specific objections to a deal and in their aspirations for it.

“A better deal would significantly roll back Iran’s nuclear infrastructure,” noted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “A better deal would link the eventual lifting of restrictions on Iran’s nuclear programme to a change in Iran’s behaviour.”

All true. Of course, a better deal would also involve gifts of delicious Persian baklava for every American. And a pony.

Mr Netanyahu also suggests that a deal would give “Iran’s murderous regime a clear path to the bomb”. That is a fallacy.

Iran is already on a path to nuclear capability. Mr Netanyahu should know, because he has been pointing that out for more than two decades. Beginning in 1992, he asserted that Iran was three to five years from a nuclear capability. Over time, that dropped to “a year or two”, and then to “months.”

But even if Mr Netanyahu’s warnings have been alarmist, he has a point: Iran is getting closer. The problem is that fulminations do not constitute a policy.

HELPING IRAN MOVE FORWARD

The West essentially has three options:

• We can try to obtain a deal to block all avenues to a bomb, uranium, plutonium and purchase of a weapon. This would allow Iran to remain on the nuclear path, but would essentially freeze its progress — if it doesn’t cheat. To prevent cheating, we need the toughest inspections regime in history.

• We can continue the sanctions, cyberwarfare and sabotage to slow Iran’s progress. This has worked better than expected, but it is not clear that we have a new Stuxnet worm to release. And, partly because of congressional meddling in the United States, international support for sanctions may unravel.

• We can launch military strikes on Natanz, Isfahan, Arak, Fordow and, possibly, Tehran. This would be a major operation lasting weeks. Strikes would take place in the daytime to maximise the number of nuclear scientists killed. All this would probably delay a weapon by one to three years — but it could send oil prices soaring, lead to retaliatory strikes and provoke a nationalistic backlash in support of the government.

Imagine if we had launched a military strike against Chinese nuclear sites in the 1960s. In that case, Beijing might still be ruled by Maoists.

On balance, with either the military option or the sanctions option, Iran probably ends up with a nuclear capability within a decade. With a nuclear deal, it is just possible that we could prevent that from happening. Perhaps no deal is achievable; the Iranian side has been recalcitrant lately. In that case, we continue with sanctions and hope the economic pressure further delegitimises the government and eventually forces Iran back to the table.

But again, this is not just about uranium, but also about undermining an odious regime and creating the conditions for Iran to become a normal country. I have rarely been to a more pro-American country, at the grassroots, and there is a pent-up anger at corruption and hypocrisy.

That does not mean that there is going to be a revolution anytime soon. But it means that there is a chance for movement after the death of the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is 75 and underwent prostate surgery last year.

In the office of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, whom Mr Khamenei edged out to be supreme leader, I was once jokingly introduced as coming from the “Great Satan”. An aide, referring to Iran’s own regime, immediately quipped: “America is only Baby Satan. We have Big Satan right here at home.”

So, sure, a nuclear deal carries risks and will be ugly and imperfect, but on balance, it probably reduces the risk that Iran gets the bomb in the next 10 years.

It may also, after Mr Khamenei is gone, create an opportunity for Iran to end its chapter in extremism, so the country is defined less by rapacious ayatollahs and more by those doting matrons in Mashhad.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Nicholas Kristof is a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist at The New York Times