Are sanctions on Iran working? Clearly, what the U.S. and the European Union have done so far is having an effect. Iran’s ability to import gasoline is sharply down, causing pain on the Iranian streets that might in turn cause pain to the clerical regime.

But will the economic pressure be sufficient to persuade the ayatollahs to halt their bomb-making effort?  In his Wall Street Journal column today, Gerald Seib says that “there’s a genuine need to find out whether Iran’s leaders—at least some of them— might actually be interested in a way out.”  Nobody, he adds, “thinks the odds are very good, but the economic pressure now is real enough to test the possibility.”