Perhaps a reason to be a little more hopeful…”according to AFP,”:http://www.spacewar.com/2006/090207204944.k14vpd5z.html Bruce Bueno de Mesquita has a “gaming and computer model” which predicts that

bq. By the start of next year, Iran will stabilize its nuclear program at a point where it makes enough weapons-grade fuel to build national pride by showing it can, but not enough to actually produce a bomb…

It also predicts that “the power of [Iranian] president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will quickly fade.”

I remember reading some of Bueno de Mesquita’s stuff when I was in grad school. All I recall is that it was interesting, but dense.