Obama defends Iran N-deal, calls it best alternative

Under the newly-struck accord, the economic sanctions that have crippled Tehran’s economy will gradually be lifted after it shrinks its nuclear infrastructure and accepts extensive surveillance at enrichment sites. Obama called congressional leaders Monday night to alert them that a deal was at hand. The president said the agreement, hammered out through almost two years of negotiations, would cut off all of Iran’s pathways to a bomb and give the global community unprecedented access to the country’s nuclear facilities.

As the freshly-inked deal was put to members of the UN Security Council, a combative Mr Obama said opponents at home and overseas had offered only a path to war.

“Some are less legitimate – where you see Iran financing Shiite militias that in the past have killed American soldiers and in the future may carry out atrocities when they move into Sunni areas”, the president said.

In Washington, Secretary of State John Kerry was to hold talks Thursday with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, whose government has also been alarmed about the deal with its regional rival.

The accord, reached after long, fractious negotiations, marks a dramatic break from decades of animosity between the United States and Iran, countries that have called each other the “leading state sponsor of terrorism” and “the Great Satan”. If Congress votes against the deal, the president would veto that bill and, at this point, he would seem to have the necessary support to sustain it. “Makes it much more hard for us to walk away if Iran somehow thinks that a nuclear deal is dependent in some fashion on the nuclear“, explained the president.

We wish we could suspend our disbelief that the pact will make it far less likely that Tehran eventually will become a nuclear power, posing a gathering threat to the USA, to our ally Israel, to Saudi Arabia and to other Arab nations in the Gulf region.

A Downing Street spokesman said Mr Cameron “expressed his hope that this deal would mark a fresh start in bilateral relations between the United Kingdom and Iran and in Iran’s role in the region”. Still, he suggested a breakthrough on the nuclear issue could pave the way for a broader shift in relations between the US and Iran.

“J Street wants Congress to know that, despite some loud opposition to the deal coming from Jewish organizational leaders, our polling suggests that a clear majority of Jewish Americans agrees with us and backs the deal”, the group said in a statement.