IranObama: Deal depends on Iran agreeing to a verifiable 10-year freeze on nuclear activity

President Barack Obama said yesterday (Monday) that Iran must commit to a verifiable freeze of its nuclear activities for at least ten years in order to make a nuclear deal possible. He said that there are still considerable gaps between the position of Iran and that of the P5+1 group, and that the odds were still against reaching an agreement.

The New York Times reports that in an interview with Reuters at the White House, Obama said that the storm over Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned Tuesday’s speech to Congress, a speech arranged by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) for the purpose of rallying lawmakers to oppose the deal the administration has been negotiating with Iran, was a distraction but that it would not be “permanently destructive” to U.S.-Israeli relations.

He said there was a “substantial disagreement” between his administration and the government of Israel over how to achieve their shared goal of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

“If, in fact, Iran is willing to agree to double-digit years of keeping their program where it is right now and, in fact, rolling back elements of it that currently exist … if we’ve got that, and we’ve got a way of verifying that, there’s no other steps we can take that would give us such assurance that they don’t have a nuclear weapon,” he said.

The goal of the United States is to make sure “there’s at least a year between us seeing them try to get a nuclear weapon and them actually being able to obtain one,” Obama said.

Netanyahu has harshly criticized the deal he says the Obama administration has accepted, saying the P5+1 negotiators appear to have given up on a commitment to prevent Iran from acquiring the capabilities to build nuclear weapons.

He said a nuclear-armed Iran would pose an existential threat to Israel.

Obama downplayed the long-term damage to U.S.-Israel relations from the row over Netanyahu’s speech to Congress. “This is not a personal issue. I think that it is important for every country in its relationship with the United States to recognize that the U.S. has a process of making policy,” Obama said.

Obama noted, though, that Netanyahu was an alarmist who had been wrong before with his opposition to a 2013 interim deal with Iran.

“Netanyahu made all sorts of claims. This was going to be a terrible deal. This was going to result in Iran getting $50 billion worth of relief. Iran would not abide by the agreement. None of that has come true.

“It has turned out that in fact, during this period we’ve seen Iran not advance its program. In many ways, it’s rolled back elements of its program.”

Obama also noted that Netanyahu speech was without historical precedent. He said it would be as if Democrats in Congress invited the French president to speak after opposing George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. “I guarantee you that some of the same commentators who are cheerleading now would have suggested that it was the wrong thing to do,” he said.

The Guardian notes that the White House last week denied a report that the United States and Iran were exploring a possible 10-year deal which would freeze Iran’s nuclear program initially, but gradually allow it to increase its nuclear activities so that it could produce nuclear arms in the last years of the agreement.

In a speech Monday to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Netanyahu warned that a nuclear deal could threaten Israel’s survival, while insisting that U.S.-Israeli relationship was “stronger than ever.”

Obama said that the key doubts about reaching a final deal with Iran by the 30 June deadline involved questions about Iran’s willingness to agree to intrusive inspections and to limits imposed on their uranium enrichment capabilities.

“But if they do agree to it, it would be far more effective in controlling their nuclear program than any military action we could take, any military action Israel could take and far more effective than sanctions will be,” Obama said.