60 Minutes producer reflects on Iran deal

It was exactly one year ago this week that the Islamic Republic of Iran granted our 60 Minutes team 8-day visas to film a story with Steve Kroft, which we titled "8 Days in Tehran." We set out for Tehran last April, hoping to inform our audience about a people and place we knew very little about -- as a result of 35 years of estrangement.

Without a doubt, President Rouhani's 2013 election win brought the prospect of seismic change inside Iran and in its relations with the West. The diplomatic thaw between Iran and the West came in the form of nuclear negotiations, aimed at limiting Iran's ability to enrich uranium and doing away with its stockpiles. In return, the international community would terminate economic sanctions against Iran. The prospect of this deal stirred-up a potent cocktail of hope and fear among Iranians which has turned Iran, an already confusing place, into a total enigma.

Talking to people in the streets of Tehran taught us that navigating the road between the hardliners and the reformers is a nearly impossible task. Just when you think things have changed, there's some sign that they haven't. This is what Iranians, the hopeful and the fearful, do on a daily basis.

"A year later, the fight between the reformers and the hardliners rages still."

We interviewed dozens of people -- entrepreneurs and students in more moderate sections of Tehran and men and women in working-class, religious neighborhoods -- most of them careful to temper their hope with anti-American themes lifted from the Supreme Leader's most recent sermon.

A year later, the fight between the reformers and the hardliners rages still. President Rouhani is in the middle of it, trying his best to chart a middle way through without getting blown-over by either side. But with today's announcement that a framework agreement to limit Iran's nuclear capability and remove sanctions has been reached, it signals the potential for transformative change inside Iran and in its relations with the West.

The true deadline for this deal is June 30th -- three, long months away. Without question, there are still gaps that need to be bridged, details that need to be worked out, and these next three months are sure to be difficult ones.