President Obama used his weekly address Saturday to attempt to build public support for his Iran negotiations, promising to “keep Congress and the American people fully briefed on the substance of the deal.”
The Obama administration, along with five other major powers and Iran, appeared to come to a preliminary deal this week. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, a nuclear scientist, help iron out details about how Iran could maintain some centrifuges while giving the world assurances that Iran would not develop nuclear bombs.
Republicans took a harder-line approach, diverging from Obama on the world stage to favor harsher sanctions. Many Americans, too, worry that Iran — on bad terms with the U.S. for decades — could pose an imminent danger.
But the United States has only three options in Iran, Obama said Saturday: Bomb its nuclear facilities, “which will only set its program back a few years while starting another war in the Middle East”; maintaining the status quo of sanctions, which have “always led to Iran making more progress in its nuclear program”; or diplomacy.
“In return for Iran’s actions, the international community, including the United States, has agreed to provide Iran with phased relief from certain sanctions,” he said.
Despite his characterization of sanctions as ineffective, “other American sanctions on Iran for its support of terrorism, its human rights abuses, its ballistic missile program — all will continue to be enforced,” he said.
“This deal is not based on trust. It’s based on unprecedented verification,” he said.
