Kerry mounts furious defense of Iran nuclear deal

A trio of Obama administration officials will stand stalwart behind the Iranian nuclear deal despite deep concern on Capitol Hill that Iran will try to evade nuclear inspectors and use billions from sanctions relief to further destabilize the Middle East.

The Israeli leader expressed his desire to include his government’s request to dismantle some of Iran’s most problematic nuclear facilities in the deal. President Barack Obama insists the agreement is beneficial to American interests.

“We greatly disagree when it comes to the agreement with Iran and fear for the future in the aftermath of its signing”, he said. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, Kerry said that if the nuclear deal is implemented and Iran violates it, the U.S. would have more justification to exercise a military option. “For the families of Americans who are missing or detained in Iran, such as that of my constituent Robert Levinson, this deal has brought no new information regarding their loved ones’ whereabouts”.

In broad terms, the deal reached between Iran and the U.S., Iran, Russia, China, U.K., France and Germany, curbs Iran’s enrichment capabilities and in exchange lifts nuclear-releated sanctions put in place by the United Nations, Europe and the United States.

In Jordan, while visiting a base used by the United States and its coalition partners to strike ISIS targets inside Syria, Carter met with a group of pilots and even spoke with one sitting in the cockpit of an F-16.

Full House and Senate debates and votes to approve or reject the nuclear agreement are expected in September, after Congress returns from an August recess.

Iranian hardliners are trying to undermine the pact and Israel has condemned it as a dire security threat.

Kerry says that he and Netanyahu are “still talking” amid the dispute and that the Obama administration remains convinced that the effect of the deal will make Israel safer.

US Secretary of State John Kerry told Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya television in an interview broadcast Tuesday he would tell Gulf foreign ministers in Qatar next month “all of the ways in which this agreement, in fact, makes the Gulf states and the region safer”. “Not unlike a hotel guest that leaves only with a hotel bathrobe on his back, I believe that you’ve been fleeced”, he said.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been an outspoken critic of the agreement, saying it would set Iran, which denies his country’s right to exist, on a path toward obtaining a nuclear weapon. “Here in the House, the people’s priorities continue to be our priorities”, he said on Wednesday. Already those 15 are the subject of heavy lobbying by the forces for and against the agreement and will likely face intense pressure in the roughly 60 days before Congress must vote on the deal. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Republican presidential candidate, urged colleagues to reject the Iran agreement and hold out for a better one.

The UN Security Council unanimously passed a resolution Monday in the first of a series of steps that – as Tehran’s compliance is verified – will gradually unwind the global sanctions that have choked the Iranian economy. We don’t know much about the specifics, but reports revealed hints that the Obama administration was growing increasingly alarmed by Israel’s actions. Not so parenthetically, the deal will also enable Iran to eventually acquire ballistic missiles capable of reaching our shores.

The U.S. has demeaned itself as a world power and lost the confidence of its traditional friends who have witnessed Obama’s lies, his repudiation of crucial assurances initially made in relation to Iran and his betrayal and abandonment of longstanding allies while groveling to rogue states and dictatorships.