Kerry – critics of Iran deal spinning “fantasy”, urges approval

Only a day after former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani said in an interview with an Arab daily last week that the reopening of the US embassy in Tehran is a possibility, the supreme leader ayatollah Khamenei said that the recent nuclear deal between Iran and world powers does not mean an end to the hostilities between the Islamic republic and “the world arrogance led by America”.

The deal was reached after tough negotiations between Iran and the Security Council’s five permanent members – Britain, China, France, Russian Federation and the United States – plus Germany.

“We welcome any agreement that would guarantee Iran’s inability to obtain a nuclear weapon, and that contains an effective inspection mechanism, through which all sites would be inspected, including the military sites, as well as a mechanism to reinstate sanctions against Iran in the event that it violates such an agreement“, al-Jubeir said.

US Secretary of State John Kerry staunchly defended the Iran nuclear deal telling skeptics warning his Senate that turning down the deal would allow to Iran to continue with its weapons program. President Obama is naïve to believe that this agreement has, as he puts it, “stopped the spread of nuclear weapons”.

Seeking to reassure Israel and its U.S. supporters, Kerry said Washington would increase security coordination.

“The alternative to the deal we’ve reached isn’t what we’re seeing ads for on TV”, he said, referring to commercials backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which strongly opposes the deal.

The trio of Obama administration officials – Secretary of State John Kerry, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew – are to testify Thursday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“It isn’t a better deal, some sort of unicorn arrangement involving Iran’s complete capitulation”, Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Another Republican, Jim Risch, said he had been “bamboozled”.

Carter said his trip to the region, which also included a stop in Saudi Arabia, another deal skeptic, was not aimed at persuading skeptical allies but of reassuring them of continued U.S. military support in the deal’s wake. If the U.S. walks away from the agreement, Kerry says America’s global partners will not follow. In parallel it has demonstrated the militarization of the power structure of a regime at the cost of disregard for all civil and human rights of the Iranian people.

Responding to criticism that sanctions would be lifted too quickly, Lew said it would not prevent the United States from imposing additional sanctions over issues such as human rights violations if deemed necessary.

They briefed the entire Senate and House of Representatives in separate closed-door sessions on Wednesday, and administration officials have held a series of private telephone conversations and meetings with lawmakers.

Kerry is testifying before a Senate committee as the Obama administration publicly defends the much-debated accord.