Kerry Defends Iran Nuclear Deal

“They (Iran) already have what they want”.

However, under questioning from Sen.

“If Iran fails to comply, we will know it quickly and be able to respond accordingly”, Kerry said, referring to arrangements for “snapping back” harsh worldwide financial sanctions on Tehran.

Senator Bob Corker on Thursday presided over the first in a series of hearings examining the nuclear agreement with Iran. “We are convinced the agreement we have arrived at with the world powers is an agreement that will prevent Iran from the potential of securing a nuclear weapon, it will make the region, our friends and allies safer”, Kerry said during his visit to the Capitol.

His appearance was part of the Obama administration’s continued lobbying to build support for the deal.

“If you don’t live up to this agreement, I guarantee you, the consequences will not be pretty”, Senator Barbara Boxer said.

“This is a deal that in my review produces a dramatically better position for about 15 years than the status quo before negotiations started”, said Kaine. We have ended up in a situation where the deal that’s on the table basically codifies the industrialization of their nuclear program.

Speaking frankly about the toll crippling worldwide sanctions have had on the Iranian economy, Rouhani said at a medical conference in Tehran, that a nuclear deal was precisely the reason he was elected two years ago.

“With all due respect, you guys have been bamboozled, and the American people are going to pay for that”, added Sen”.

He dismissed the argument that the US could get a better deal with Iran as “a fantasy, plain and simple”.

He says it is “unrealistic to think that additional sanctions pressure would force Iran to totally capitulate”.

A good deal, for now?

“The fact is that Iran now has extensive experience with nuclear fuel cycle technology”, Kerry told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He said “powerful sanctions”, including the primary U.S. trade embargo on Iran, will stay in place in any case. “The choice we face is between a deal that will ensure Iran’s nuclear program is limited, rigorously scrutinized, and wholly peaceful or no deal at all”.

He says, “The deal is based on science and analysis”.

The White House has launched a sales pitch to the Republican-controlled Congress, which 60 days to vote to either approve or disapprove of it.

Meanwhile, Iran’s president has also been defending last week’s accord. “But there are qualities to this [inspections] program that would not be unlike causing athletes to just mail in their own urine specimens in the mail and us believing that’s where it – that it came from them”. Bob Corker, R-Tenn.

Kerry will be joined by Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew during the hearing, in a what is certainly a rare joint-Cabinet member testimony.

The panel’s top Democrat, Maryland Sen.

On Wednesday, Kerry and the other cabinet officials offered a classified briefing to legislators, away from the media and the public.