“I think that we’re not going to convince Prime Minister Netanyahu. Frankly, he has disagreed with this approach since before the first Joint Plan of Action, the first interim agreement that was reached with Iran,” said Ben Rhodes, US President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser. The White House official was speaking to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria.
Obama himself also reiterated at the weekend that the framework represented “a historic understanding” that if fully implemented would prevent Iran from, attaining nuclear weapons. Talks on a final deal are supposed to be completed by June 30.
| The Iranians get a lifting of sanctions, the right to use advanced centrifuges and the right to hide, through the usual subterfuges, whatever uranium they make. How exactly does that keep them from building the bomb? |
Netanyahu harshly criticized the negotiations, relentlessly demanding instead that the Iranian program be dismantled. He claims Iran cannot be trusted, and that leaving key facilities intact –as the framework deal does — will allow the Iranians to eventually build a bomb. Other officials described the deal Thursday night as a “dangerous capitulation” to Iran.
The US has maintained that the deal took Israel’s concerns into consideration and that Washington remains committed to Israel’s security.
| Except that the Israelis say the deal doesn't take their "concerns" into consideration... |
| They're Israeli, and by definition incapable of understanding what their real concerns are. |
Netanyahu also demanded Friday that any final deal include a clause demanding recognition of Israel’s right to exist — a demand immediately rejected by the US State Department.
| They didn't wait for the Iranians to reject it... |
“This is an agreement that is only about the nuclear issue,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters on Friday night, according to Fox News. “This is an agreement that doesn’t deal with any other issues, nor should it.”
In his interview, Rhodes said that the US was not ignoring concerns about Iran’s “destabilizing actions in the region, its threats toward Israel and our other partners, its support for terrorism.”
“While we have a nuclear deal here, we’re going to be very very vigilant in confronting other Iranian actions in the region,” he said.
| Sure you will. Just like you've been vigilant with al-Qaeda, the ISIS, Yemen, Somalia, the Ukraine and the rise of China's Navy... |
“We feel good,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said, according to Reuters. “There’s a lot of work to be done, but we are confident we can get those details in place.”
The commitments announced Thursday, if implemented, would substantially pare back some Iranian nuclear assets for a decade and restrict others for an additional five years. According to a US document listing those commitments, Tehran is ready to reduce its number of centrifuges, the machines that can spin uranium gas to levels used in nuclear warheads.
| I think that means that the Iranians have enough uranium for a few bombs now and can afford a few years to make more uranium at a slower rate... |
| All of that is subject to canoodling by the Iranians. |
| They'll bring El-Baradei back to run the IAEA, you watch... |