1.
Goodman: We turn now to what could be the final
step in an historic deal between Iran and six world powers that would limit
Tehran’s nuclear ability for more than a decade in exchange for sanctions
relief. Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program
entered their 17th, and possibly last, day in Vienna today, as the interim
agreement is set to expire at 6:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time tonight. Secretary
of State John Kerry told reporters he is confident a deal is within reach, but
negotiators in Vienna are still smoothing over key details, including what
limits to set on Iran’s nuclear research, the pace of sanctions relief and
whether to lift a United Nations arms embargo on Iran. If a deal is brokered,
Congress will have 60 days to review it, keeping U.S. sanctions in place in the
meantime. An extra 22 days are set aside for voting, a possible presidential
veto and then another vote to see if opponents can muster 67 Senate votes to
override the veto. Meanwhile, the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, is set to
address Iran on the nuclear deal in the next few hours. For more, we go to
Vienna, Austria, where we’re joined by Flynt Leverett, who’s there following
the talks, author of Going to Tehran: Why America Must Accept the Islamic
Republic of Iran. He’s a professor of international affairs at Penn State,
served for over a decade in the U.S. government as a senior analyst at the CIA,
a Middle East specialist for the State Department and as senior director for
Middle East affairs at the National Security Council. Flynt Leverett, welcome
back to Democracy Now! What is happening at this moment in Vienna?
2.
Leverett: Thank you. I believe that a final
agreement is going to be reached here. What we’re watching now is a very, very
slow, excruciatingly slow, process. The negotiators here have basically
finished their work. Texts have gone back to national capitals for final review. And especially on the U.S. side, this process of review
within the Obama administration is moving along very, very slowly. To the best
of my knowledge, the White House has not come back with specific concerns,
specific points that it wants, in effect, to renegotiate, but it seems like
the Obama administration is being very deliberate, to say the least, in
reviewing the work that is done here. And that means—you know, if one of
the parties is slow, it means it delays the time at which people can produce
final text, text that can basically be released to the world when the parties
are ready to announce. That’s what we’re watching right now. But I still think
we’re going to get to a final agreement very soon.
3.
Goodman: Can you talk about the main issues that
are in this agreement and those left to resolve?
4.
Leverett: Yes. The main issues, which, to the
best of my understanding, have been resolved, are the nature of the limits on
its nuclear activities that Iran will observe while an agreement is in place;
the pace and scope of sanctions relief for Iran, sanctions lifting, has been
worked out. Over the last few days, the main issues that needed to be worked
through concern precise terms on specific parts of a new United Nations
Security Council that will lift—that will nullify previous resolutions related
to the Iran nuclear issue, remove international sanctions against Iran
authorized by the Security Council, including the arms embargo, and formally launch
implementation of this agreement. To the best of my understanding, the
negotiators here have basically reached an understanding about the terms of the
Security Council resolution, but, as I said, it’s being
reviewed in national capitals, and that review process is going especially
slowly in Washington.
5.
Goodman: On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the pending Iranian nuclear deal being sought by
the international negotiators. This is what he said.
6.
Netanyahu: [translated] Iran does not hide
its intention to continue its murderous aggression, even against those with
which it is negotiating. Perhaps there is somebody among the powers who is
willing to capitulate to the reality that Iran is dictating, which includes its
repeated calls for the destruction of Israel. We will not accept this.
7.
Goodman: Flynt Leverett, your response?
8.
Leverett: Well, I mean, certainly no surprise
that Prime Minister Netanyahu would say that. You
know, America’s traditional allies in the region—Israel and Saudi Arabia—both
have been working to undermine a deal. Even if they are not able to stop a
deal—and I don’t think they will be—they are working very hard to put as much
pressure as possible on the United States so that a nuclear agreement doesn’t
become a critical first step in a broader realignment of U.S.-Iranian
relations. My own view, my wife and I, both in government and in the
years since we left government, have argued vociferously that, for its own interest,
the United States desperately needs to come to terms with the Islamic Republic
of Iran, this increasingly important power in the Middle East. It needs to
balance its traditional, but increasingly dysfunctional, relationships with
Israel and Saudi Arabia with strategically grounded engagement with Iran. This
nuclear deal could be a critical first step in that direction. It’s one of the
reasons that I’m here, to try and help make that argument. But, you know, there
are a lot of pressures on the Obama administration, and I’m not sure there’s a
real consensus within the administration to use a nuclear agreement, which, as
I said, I think we will get here within relatively short order—I don’t think
there’s that kind of consensus within the administration to use a deal as the
springboard for what I think is an imperative realignment of U.S. relations
with Iran. The U.S. needs to revamp its approach to the Middle East. And a
critical, essential step in that revamping will be realigning U.S. relations
with Iran.
9.
Goodman: Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell suggested the Obama administration will have a difficult time
convincing Congress to approve a deal with Iran.
10.
MAJORITY LEADER MITCH McCONNELL: Well, look, we already know
that it’s going to leave Iran as a threshold nuclear state. We know that. It
appears as if the administration’s approach to this was to reach whatever
agreement the Iranians are willing to enter into. So I think it’s going to be a
very hard sell, if it’s completed, in Congress.
11.
Goodman: The Republican
majority is expected to vote against the deal and to try to convince at least
12 Democrats to join their ranks in an attempt to defeat a presidential veto. Flynt
Leverett, explain what has to happen in the United States for the U.S. to
approve this. What is the voting that will take place?
12.
Leverett: Yes. Both houses of Congress will have
60 days to review the agreement once it’s finalized. I think it is quite
possible, if not likely, that a simple majority of members in each house will
vote a so-called resolution of disapproval in regard to the agreement. At that point,
President Obama has said that he would veto those resolutions of disapproval.
And at this point, the White House seems pretty confident that they have the
votes, at least in the Senate, and perhaps in the House, as well, to sustain
President Obama’s veto. So, they are confident that if you can get to an
agreement here in Vienna, that it will ultimately get through the congressional
review process and will go into effect. But obviously, during the next—you
know, the 60 days following a conclusion of an agreement, the Israelis, the
Saudis, their friends and allies in the American political system, others who
don’t want to see this agreement go forward are going to be working very hard,
trying to turn public opinion against the deal and trying to build
congressional support to maximize the vote against the deal. Public opinion
polls would show that Americans are open to supporting this deal, but one of the things I really worry about is that President
Obama himself has not really made the strategic case for why doing this deal
and for why building a different kind of relationship with Iran is so strongly
in America’s interest. He either talks about this as a kind of narrow arms
control agreement, but Iran is still this very bad actor, or he talks about
it in terms of it being an opportunity for Iran to rejoin the international
community, as he puts it. This is not
the way to sell this deal to Americans. Americans understand that what the
United States has been doing in the Middle East for the last decade and a half
has actually been profoundly against American interests. It’s also been very
damaging to Middle Easterners. But it has been profoundly damaging to America’s
position in this critical part of the world and globally. President Obama has a
chance here to begin to turn that around and put U.S. policy toward the Middle
East on a more different and more productive trajectory, but he is going to
have to make the strategic case—
13.
Goodman: Flynt Leverett, we’re going to have
to—
14.
Leverett: —spend the political capital necessary
to make the strategic case.
15.
Goodman: We’re going to have to leave it
there, but we’ll continue to follow this, of course.
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