Kerry defends Iran deal amid staunch Republican opposition

The deal reduces the number of Iranian centrifuges by two-thirds.

“There’s no alternative that you or anybody else has proposed as to what you”, Kerry said.

None of the United States’ partners at the negotiating table – the European powers, China, Russian Federation – is prepared to accept a nuclear-armed Iran.

“We will have squandered the best chance we have to solve this problem through peaceful means”, the secretary of state said.

Kerry said that if Congress turns thumbs down on the deal, “the result will be the United States of America walking away from every one of the restrictions we have achieved”. Surely, then, we would want to extend the existing sanctions until Iran complied?

That held little sway with Republican opponents such as Senator James Risch of Idaho, who said the administration had been “bamboozled”, or Corker of Tennessee, who likened the inspection protocol for Iran to asking professional athletes to put “their own urine samples in the mail and asking us to believe it is them”.

Republican Senator Bob Corker, the committee’s chairman, has promised to be an “honest broker” as lawmakers decide whether to vote against the accord.

Secretary of State John Kerry, testifies along with Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, and Secretary of Treasury Jack Lew at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Thursday, July 23, 2015, to review the Iran nuclear agreement. That would lead to a vote to override his veto, and the administration is searching for 34 votes in the Senate or 146 in the House, enough to assure the veto sticks.

More than that, he said, “he is the only president who has developed a weapon capable of guaranteeing that”.

Minister of Industry, Mines and Trade Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh outlined plans to rebuild its main industries and trade relationships following the deal, saying it was targeting oil and gas projects worth $185 billion by 2020.

Rouhani rejected such doubts. Pelosi has said she’s a strong supporter of the nuclear agreement.

“This agreement sent the message to the world that the most hard and complex global issues can be resolved through negotiations”. Earnest says economic sanctions won’t be lifted unless Iran gives inspectors with a United Nation’s agency (IAEA) all the access and information they need.

Marco Rubio said the deal was “fundamentally flawed” and would “weaken our national security and make the world a more risky place”.

Global monitors will supervise the process, which in exchange will ease an embargo that has crippled Iran’s economy.

Iran’s procedures for ratifying the accord are not known in any detail. Khamenei hasn’t yet delivered a final verdict on the deal. In a statement, McConnell said all the Senators had planned to meet and study the agreement in-depth to prepare for the first hearing on the pact between the G5 + 1 and Iran.

Actually, of course, if you take a look at the deal, Iran never really cried “uncle”.

Many members of the US Congress have expressed deep concern about the deal, warning that Tehran could evade inspections and use the money from sanction relief to destabilise the region.