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What is likely to be in the agreement that is being negotiated?
This is a deal intended to defuse tensions and buy time for diplomacy. It would slow down the development of the Iranian nuclear programme on one hand and ease the build-up of sanctions on the other. It could release billions of dollars in Iranian frozen assets in Europe as a sweetener to help the new Iranian government sell the deal to the clerical and military leadership in Tehran.
An interim deal would have to address Iran's stock of medium-enriched uranium, the most immediate proliferation worry.
One way of doing this would be to turn it into reactor fuel, which is harder to enrich further to weapons grade, so less threatening.
Some limits are also likely to set on Iran's production of low enriched uranium and the number of centrifuges it has spinning so that the west could be assured that Iran was not amassing production capacity that it could "break out" – and dash to the production of a weapon too rapidly.
Will the agreement stick, even if it is agreed in Geneva?
The Obama administration would be able to arrange for the unfreezing of Iranian assets without having to go to Congress, but it would still have to convince the Senate not to pass the further raft of sanctions that are currently being prepared. If those were passed, it could derail the deal.
In Iran, President Rouhani will come under fire from conservative critics for giving way for too little, but as long as he has the backing of the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, he should be able to ride out the storm. Binyamin Netanyahu's furious denunciation of the deal might actually help sell it to hardliners.
What is left to be agreed?
A long-term settlement over the status of Iran's nuclear programme. Currently, Iran's uranium enrichment has been outlawed by successive UN security council resolutions. A comprehensive deal would accept Iran's right to enrich but place safeguards on it, while lifting sanctions generally.
Most probably a cap will be agreed, so that Iran is not allowed to produce any uranium more than 5% enriched, pure enough for nuclear power stations but not nearly enough for weapons. There would also be limits on the stockpile of low enriched uranium Iran could hold without turning it into reactor fuel, and/or limits on the number and types of centrifuges it can have spinning in its enrichment plant.
Some agreement would have to be reached on how many enrichment plants Iran could run (Iran has suggested it could live with two) and whether one of those can be the underground plant at Fordow.
A comprehensive solution would also have to address the heavy water plant at Arak, which is nearing completion and which would produce plutonium when commissioned, another serious proliferation risk.
If a deal is signed, does that mean sanctions work?
That is certainly the view in western capitals. It comes in the wake of steadily intensifying punitive measures, but cause and effect may not be so clear-cut. Iranians say that the breakthrough is a more direct result of the Iranian people electing Hassan Rouhani, and that was for a whole raft of reasons, only some of which had to do with foreign affairs, and only a few of those had to do with sanctions. It was a general rejection of hardline politics, in which sanctions could have played a role.
It seems clear however that adding more sanctions now would backfire, undermining Rouhani and strengthening the hand of hardliners in Tehran who are arguing that the west cannot be trusted and that Iran's only reliable strategy is defiance.
Analysts also argue that the west could have clinched today's deal several years ago, but had used sanctions in an abortive attempt to get Iran to stop enrichment altogether. That bid has clearly failed, as acceptance of Iranian enrichment at some level will have to be a part of any workable long-term agreement.
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