Three scenarios for Iran's currency crisis?

Time's Jay Newton-Small reviews three outcomes to Iran's currency crisis stemming from sanctions.

First, is that it the regime collapses including the Ayatollah and the President.  Second, is a run to build a nuclear weapon to force an attack which would then build nationalist support for the failing regime.  The third  is a collapse of the political arm of the Iranian government, and a wholesale move to a Theocracy (as if it wasn't already one!)

All that separates the first and third options is the amount of time needed to reach a prisoner's dilemma, where distrust ends up working against both targets involved.  That is to say, if the Ayatollah wishes to ditch the political system, it won't work out because the political system will figure it out and try to ditch the Ayatollah.  It would be extremely easy to feed the distrust that already exists between those two sides.

The second option makes little sense, because it assumes that the US and Israel don't already have digital counter-measures, in case of an emergency.  If the sanctions are working -- and all signs point to that effect -- then firing off your arsenal of counter-measures would stall the program enough to allow the sanctions to break the regime.

But let's assume that Iran does find a way to speed up its construction of a nuclear device; the presumption here is that the US and Israel will react with force, immediately.  That seems dubious.  If Iran speeds up development (enrichment), it serves to demonstrate that Iran is trying to develop a weapon and that the sanctions have been very effective.  The next move would be to force Russia and China into a corner with this new evidence, and enact more sanctions that close existing loopholes.

Look at it this way: If Iran collapses under the weight of a popular uprising, Hamas and Syria lose their funding and the cards start falling.  In rapid succession the Arab Spring uprising will defeat Assad's regime in Syria; Hamas cannot reload its ammunition used to attack Israel; Palestine moves closer to a lasting peace agreement with Israel.

Now certainly there are some means for Iran to get around the sanctions altogether and survive this, but it would be foolish to subvert the demise of Iran, wouldn't it?  And ignore the BS from Mitt's political attacks; they'd do exactly the same thing the Obama Administration has done in pushing back against Benjamin Netanyahu.  War should not be an industry that self-perpetuates itself.