Top officials in President Barack Obama's administration began a major sales pitch Sunday aimed at marshaling public support for the new framework agreement between Iran and several world powers over its nuclear program, even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to U.S. airwaves to blast the accord.
The fight to shape public perceptions of the deal could have major implications for its survival, with congressional Republicans pushing for the right to accept or reject any final pact. The White House has already warned that the president would veto legislation the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is set to take up this month that would withhold sanctions relief for Iran under the final deal until lawmakers had a 60-day period to review and vote on it.
Netanyahu appeared on three major networks -- ABC, NBC and CNN -- while U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz went on CBS' Face the Nation and deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes appeared on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS. Multiple Republican and Democratic senators also delivered their assessments of the framework agreement -- largely divided along party lines -- on several Sunday shows.
Even before a deal was struck last week, the administration's top negotiators had been preparing to defend any agreement from the political onslaught they knew it would face in the halls of Congress and in Jerusalem.
"We have blocked all of these pathways to a bomb, and we should also emphasize this is not a 10-year deal," Moniz, one of the deal's key negotiators, said on CBS. "This is a long-term arrangement."
But Netanyahu called it "a historically bad deal" on NBC's Meet the Press, suggesting it would lead to both a conventional and nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
"I think this deal is a dream deal for Iran and a nightmare deal for the world," the Israeli leader said.
Netanyahu argued that the United States could have brokered a better deal and still has the option of doing so by ratcheting up the pressure of sanctions against Iran.
"I think that what they don't accept today, they can accept tomorrow," he said in an interview on ABC's This Week.
Netanyahu faces an uphill struggle as he takes aim at a deal negotiated by six global powers -- the U.S., the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Germany -- and Iran. After last week's preliminary deal, the sides will try to work out a final agreement by a June 30 deadline.
A document drawn up by experts in Netanyahu's office, obtained by The Associated Press, gives a glimpse of the arguments the Israeli leader is going to raise, targeting vague language in the system of inspections and its failure to address issues beyond the nuclear program.
The Israeli analysis of the framework raises 10 questions about alleged shortcomings in the framework. It was obtained from an official who declined to be identified because it has not yet been made public.
According to a U.S. document summarizing last week's deal, Tehran is ready to reduce its number of centrifuges, the machines that can spin uranium gas to levels used in nuclear warheads, and submit to aggressive monitoring and inspections of its nuclear facilities.
But the Israeli analysis claims the system of inspections is not as thorough as proclaimed because it does not explicitly force the Iranians to open their sites "anywhere, anytime."
It also claims the agreement is vague about what happens to Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium, a key ingredient in producing nuclear bombs, or how sanctions might be re-imposed if Iran violates the deal.
While Iran is not supposed to enrich uranium with its advanced centrifuges for 10 years, the deal permits limited "research and development" of the advanced centrifuges, according to the U.S. document. Israeli officials say this means that Iran could immediately put these centrifuges into action after the deal expires or breaks down.
They also want Iran "to come clean" about its past nuclear weapons efforts. Iran insists its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes, a claim that is widely disputed.
Obama defends Deal
Obama, meanwhile, strongly defended framework agreement as a "once in a lifetime opportunity" to curb the spread of nuclear weapons in a dangerous region while reassuring critics that he would keep all options available if Tehran ultimately cheated.
As he sought to sell the tentative deal to skeptics accusing him of giving away too much, Obama emphasized to Israel that "we've got their backs" in the face of Iranian hostility. And he suggested that he could accept some sort of vote in Congress if it did not block his ability to carry out the agreement.
"This is our best bet by far to make sure Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon," Obama said in an interview with Thomas Friedman, an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, on Saturday. "What we will be doing even as we enter into this deal is sending a very clear message to the Iranians and to the entire region that if anybody messes with Israel, America will be there."
However, key GOP senators -- including Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker of Tennessee and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina -- echoed Netanyahu's sentiments, saying they would work to alter any agreement by using the leverage they hold over lifting some of the sanctions now in place.
Graham called Obama "a flawed negotiator" in an interview on CBS, adding that without the "baggage of Obama," the next president -- regardless of party -- would be able to secure a stronger deal.
Graham also said it was "probably the best deal that Barack Obama could get with the Iranians because the Iranians don't fear" him. "Hillary Clinton could do better," he added, as could all the Republican candidates "except maybe Rand Paul."
Corker identified multiple "red flags" in the framework agreement, including what elements would be considered before international sanctions on Iran are lifted and the uncertainty surrounding what process would be in place for the International Atomic Energy Agency to conduct inspections.
Still, the tentative agreement might have provided the administration with crucial breathing room by undercutting support among Democrats for legislation that could imperil further negotiations.
"The whole purpose of this exercise was to demonstrate progress in order to fend off congressional action," said Gary Samore, a former nuclear arms adviser to Obama who is now the executive director for research at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
While several Democrats have also suggested that Congress should be able to vote any Iran agreement up or down -- input Corker described Sunday as Congress's "rightful role" -- key lawmakers within the president's party offered their support Sunday.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on CNN's State of the Union that the nuclear framework was "a better agreement, candidly, than I thought it was ever going to be" and that she would not support Corker's bill in its current form.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., noted on NBC that other sanctions -- including over Iran's ballistic missile program, the country's support for terrorism and record on human rights -- will remain in place even if the framework agreement is finalized. And he pushed back against the criticism that the deal does nothing to alter the behavior of a country Netanyahu repeatedly called the "pre-eminent terrorist state of our time."
"It's true that this deal doesn't turn Iran from a bad guy into a good guy," Murphy said. "But it's a little bit of rewriting of history to suggest these negotiations were about all of the other nefarious activities of Iran in the region. These negotiations were about ending their nuclear program, such that we can start to lift up the moderate elements ... [and] talk about all these other issues."
In his interview, Obama struck a conciliatory note after weeks of open tension with Netanyahu. Obama said "I respect" Netanyahu's security argument and agreed that Israelis "have every right to be concerned about Iran," a country that has threatened "to destroy Israel, that has denied the Holocaust, that has expressed venomous anti-Semitic ideas."
He pledged to redouble support for Israeli security.
"I would consider it a failure on my part, a fundamental failure of my presidency, if on my watch, or as a consequence of work that I had done, Israel was rendered more vulnerable," he said.
Praise for Ayatollah
Meanwhile in Tehran, Iran's military chief congratulated Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for negotiators' success in reaching a nuclear agreement with six world powers, in an open backing of President Hassan Rouhani's government.
In praising the outcome of the talks, Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi highlighted rifts between Rouhani and critics who say negotiations don't serve Iran's national interest. While Khamenei hasn't commented publicly on the framework accord reached last week, the general's words indicate the political establishment's official line in presenting the deal at home.
Thanks to Khamenei's leadership and efforts by Rouhani's team of negotiators, "another step was taken to ensure Iran's inalienable right" to produce peaceful nuclear energy, Firouzabadi said in a letter to Khamenei, the Fars news agency reported.
The general thanked Rouhani for actions taken in this "sensitive arena" and Khamenei for his "guidance" on nuclear negotiations, according to Fars. Firouzabadi reports to Khamenei, Iran's ultimate authority.
The general echoed Rouhani's observation in a televised speech Friday that the deal meant Iran was safeguarding its rights and making progress to lift international sanctions.
"There is no question that the Supreme Leader has been fully informed of all developments," said Saeed Laylaz, an economist and former adviser to ex-president Mohammad Khatami. Firouzabadi's comments show the nuclear agreement "has been endorsed" and that security forces also back the government, Laylaz said.
In other news, Iran's economy has benefited from the announcement of the framework deal. The official IRNA news agency says the Tehran Stock Exchange index rose 6.9 percent over two days. The agency says the index improved by 4,535 points to 70,261 on Sunday -- the second working day of Iran's new year. It was the highest level in at least 18 months.
Information for this article was contributed by by Juliet Eilperin and Michelle Ye Hee Lee of The Washington Post, by Josef Federman and staff members of The Associated Press, and by Ladane Nasseri and Golnar Motevalli of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 04/06/2015