After Iranian president Hassan Rouhani’s first 100 days in office, the Islamic Republic is still repressing its own citizens, and contributing to the slaughter of Syrian civilians. While Rouhani has achieved only one of his 46 explicit campaign promises, the reopening of Iran’s House of Cinema (Khaneh Cinema), he may yet deliver on his most important promise: Economic relief from sanctions without offering the West meaningful nuclear concessions.

But for the 11th hour French intervention over the weekend, the new Iranian president would have scored a significant victory at Geneva. The U.S. administration seemed ready to give tens of billions of dollars in irreversible sanctions relief, in addition to the unilateral sanctions relief by blocking new Congressional sanctions, in exchange for the promise of reversible nuclear concessions that do not roll back or freeze enough of the critical elements of Iran’s military-nuclear infrastructure. In other words, Rouhani nearly delivered on his deputy nuclear negotiator Abbas Araqchi’s pledge not to “allow even a gram of uranium to go out of the country.”

 And he nearly vindicated the conservative Iranian parliamentarian Ali Motahari who proclaimed, “Negotiations do not require concession, rather, negotiations are a tool for us to receive concessions.”

 Geneva negotiations will resume on November 21. There is no indication that the Obama administration will enhance its negotiation leverage by ending its opposition to new Congressional sanctions. Such an approach will likely lead to the eventual nuclearization of Iran.