In a sharp retort to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, hours after his Tuesday address to the US Congress on the dangers of the nuclear deal being negotiated with Iran, President Barack Obama came up with a point-by-point rebuttal and argued that it’s the best deal possible to halt Tehran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. “If we’re successful in negotiating, then, in fact, this will be the best deal possible to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” Obama told reporters at the Oval Office, asserting: “Nothing else comes close. Sanctions won’t do it. Even military action would not be as successful as the deal that we have put forward.”
Obama also faulted Netanyahu for not offering any viable alternatives to the deal that he condemned in absolute terms. The alternative that Netanyahu does offer is “no deal”, in which case Iran will immediately revert to its nuclear programme and accelerate it without any constraint, Obama said, adding: “His essential argument is that if we just double down on sanctions, Iran won’t want to do that.”
On the contrary, if the P5+1 nations (US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany) get Iran to sign the deal in the works, it would “cut off all the various pathways for Iran getting a nuclear weapon”. And it will have a verification and inspection mechanism, so “if they engage in a covert programme we are far more likely to see it in time to do something about it,” Obama said.
“So let’s be clear about what exactly the central concern should be, both for the United States and for Israel,” he told Netanyahu, stressing that by enforcing a stringent sanctions regime, Iran has been forced to negotiate over the last year, freezing its nuclear programme during this period, rolling back some of its highly enriched uranium and subjecting itself to verifications and inspections not seen before.
Obama, who at one point hinted that Netanyahu was indulging in “theatre” with the sort of speech he made on Capitol Hill, said that he had made a similar speech when the interim deal was being hammered out with Iran. He went on to say that over a year later, even Israeli intelligence officers and some members of the Netanyahu Government have had to acknowledge that the deal kept Iran from going ahead with its programme.
According to Obama, the final deal currently being negotiated seeks to “cut off the different pathways for Iran to advance its nuclear capabilities”, rolling back some elements of its programme, ensuring that “a breakout capacity” of more than a year and subjecting Tehran to the most vigorous inspections and verifications regimes ever put in place.
In a message that was directed at the Republican-controlled Congress as well, Obama said sanctions alone would not be sufficient to prevent Iran’s pursuit of its nuclear ambitions. The Congress, which has been pressuring Obama on its own, is set to begin a debate next week on a bipartisan legislation that will require Obama to get its approval on any nuclear deal with Iran. The debate could also lead to consideration of slapping new economic sanctions on Iran, but the White House has already threatened to veto any such legislation because the administration would want flexibility to hammer out the deal with Tehran.