I'd say this summarizes the better analysis I've read about not just who is giving up what, but what this actually means for Iran, and why the deal is a good thing for everyone (which, frankly, is the the formula for a good diplomatic solution).
Originally shared by +Andreas Schou:
Questions and Answers About Iran and its Incentives
Yesterday, +Michael K Pate was arguing that it got everything that it wanted out of its negotiations with the United States. This is mostly untrue. A few notes:
Q: Does Iran really have a single set of incentives?
A: No, not really. It has two.
Iran is two countries that share the same territory. Those two countries are almost entirely disjoint: they have their own heads of government, their own armies, their own legitimizing narratives and mechanisms of political selection, and their own capacity to legislate. One is a moderately theocratic military dictatorship. One is an illiberal democracy.
We are negotiating primarily with the illiberal democracy. But both have good (although different) reasons to come to a deal.
Q: What are the clerical government's incentives?
The TL;DR version? Stability, security, corruption, hegemony, and the spread of Shi'a Islam. Probably in that order.
To understand how Iran works, you have to first understand that the clerical half of Iran's government is neither irrational nor strictly theocratic. When the Islamic Republic was founded, its initial constitutional idea was to always appoint an acclaimed jurist-theologian to the position of Supreme Leader. An ayatollah, in other words.
This worked exactly once: Khomeini was a theologically-justified ayatollah when he took office. Khameini, however, is an ayatollah in name only: he was only acclaimed as an ayatollah once he took office. This is largely because, from the beginning, the Revolutionary Guard has wielded disproportionate influence inside the clerical government. And although it's deeply and sincerely religious, it behaves much like the Egyptian military: it is largely concerned with national prestige, regional hegemony, freedom from foreign interference, dominance of the domestic economy, and social stability.
Being a credible nuclear threat achieves almost all of these goals. This is complicated, however, by the fact that actually having a nuclear weapon compromises these goals: the only additional capability that a nuke offers is the ability to nuke Tel Aviv. Whereupon Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, Mashhad, and Qom immediately go up in flames.
Bad plan, all told. Better to raise the stakes on nuclear development until you can get substantial concessions, then cash out.
Q: What are the civilian government's incentives?
Iran's civilian government wants what all civilian governments want: not to be voted out of power, and — to a lesser degree — everything that the clerical government wants as well. It's also in a medium-intensity conflict with the clerical government over the privileges of the secular state.
At the moment, there's a deep divide among Iranian elites — including the Iranian clerical establishment, which was deeply riven by Khameini's ascension to the position of Supreme Leader — about the ultimate source of the legitimacy of the Iranian state. Does it come from the consent of the ummah or the (tenuous) religious acclamation of the Supreme Leader?
These negotiations are immensely popular in Iran, and their success is largely being attributed to the conservative-reformist Rouhani. In the long-term, anything that increases the legitimacy of Iran's elected leaders vis-a-vis the clerical government serves America's interests.
Q: Did Iran get what it wanted?
Yes.
First, getting the United States to sit down at the negotiating table means that, in practice, Iran is already being treated as though it's a nuclear power. Furthermore, coming to a long-term nuclear agreement gives Iran some domestic breathing room, strains the relationship between Israel and the United States, improves the economy in ways that inure to important IRG commanders, and dials back the strain that sanctions were placing on domestic politics.
(5) Did the US get what it wanted?
Yes.
We kick the can down the road another fifteen years. We get the ability to speak directly with Iran about areas of mutual interest — particularly, the problem of radical Sunni insurgents in northern Mesopotamia and the Levant. We build the legitimacy of the civilian government against the clerical government. We take one more constraint off of our diplomatic relations with the more reluctant partners in sanctions.
(6) In fifteen years, are we back to the place where we were two weeks ago?
Probably not.
First, Iran has been markedly unstable over the past decade. The disputed 2009 election aside, there have been escalating power struggles between the clerical and civilian Iranian governments. Ahmadinejad's appointees to military, intelligence, and vice presidential positions were overruled by Khomeini; the children and other relatives of high political officials were taken as hostages; military units were pulled back from crowd control because of fears that they would disobey orders to use violence against civilians. If I had to put money on it, I'd say the Islamic Republic would probably be around in another 15 years — but the inability of the IRG to hold uncontested power domestically is another constraint on their ability to restart a nuclear weapons program.
Second, everyone involved in the 1979 revolution will be elderly or dead in fifteen years. This is critically important: Iran's revolutionary generation has had a monopoly on power since 1979. Khomeini, Khameini, Mousavi, Larijani, Rouhani, Kerroubi, Rafsanjani — they were all active in the Revolution. Leaders who emerged after the Revolution, like Ahmadinejad, have traditionally had a tenuous grasp on power.
There is every reason to believe that, in fifteen years, the situation in Iran will be substantially different: there will be a new Supreme Leader, a new President, a new Majlis, and a new set of IRG commanders. If the current trajectory continues, the metastable politics of the Iranian government will likely settle into one of three equalibria: IRG-theocratic dominance, with a vestigial democracy; a republican-clerical alliance against a fragmented IRG; or total collapse of what seems to be an inherently unstable form of government.
In any of the above cases, we won't be back to where we started: Iran's government will very likely be (a) completely unstable, and unable to tolerate the internal strife that further sanctions would cause; (b) somewhat more democratic, and unlikely to antagonize the international community just for the sake of antagonizing it; or (c) run by a fat, contented military kleptocracy funded by oil revenues.
From an American diplomatic perspective, any of the three is more tolerable than the present state. From a moral perspective, (b) is extremely preferable.