Yesterday, President Barack Obama triumphantly announced that after months—nay, years—of parley with Tehran, overt and secret, through myriad interlocutors, an agreement had been reached, at the thirteenth hour, on the hotly contested issue of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

This is not a final agreement, rather an agreement that, at some point, there may be a final agreement with Tehran. Time has been bought, for whose benefit remains to be seen. Having pushed U.S. negotiators, led by Secretary of State John Kerry, past their appointed deadline for negotiations at Lausanne at the foot of the Swiss Alps, it’s evident that Obama was willing to pay almost any price to get any agreement with Iran. And any agreement he has gotten.

The deal looks substantial on paper. Tehran has agreed to reduce its stockpile of low-enriched uranium, the sort needed to possibly produce atomic weapons, by 98 percent and significantly scale back its centrifuges, which is what most of the knotty public debate has been about. However, Iranian negotiators wasted no time raining on Obama’s parade, undercutting the president almost immediately.