The top U.S. negotiator in the nuclear talks with Iran defended the process at a conference of reform Jewish leaders Monday, as a new poll indicated Americans are deeply skeptical of how the Obama administration is handling the negotiations.
The elements of a “historic” framework announced April 2 for a potential agreement “offer the best chance of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon” and “will make Israel, the region, the United States and indeed the world, safer,” Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman said in a speech to the biennial leadership policy conference of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
It was her first public remarks since returning from the latest round of talks last week in Vienna.
Sherman said the administration’s negotiating strategy, which has come under heavy criticism in Congress and from some experts, has put a brake on Iran’s advancement toward being able to develop a nuclear weapon. Though sanctions had brought Iran to the negotiating table, it had not stopped its progress, she said, repeating one of the administration’s key talking points in support of the process.
“The only thing that has stopped Iran’s program, and in fact rolled it back, is the [Joint Plan of Action],” she said, referring to the November 2013 interim agreement that expires July 1.
Selling the framework as a “historic” step toward a nuclear deal with Iran has been a tough job for the administration, not the least because it’s not clear what, if anything, was agreed to. There are deep and significant disagreements between the U.S. version of the framework and what Iranian leaders say it contains.
A Quinnipiac poll released Monday captured the dilemma for President Obama. Though 58 percent of those polled support the framework, 62 percent are skeptical that it would prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, versus 35 percent who are at least somewhat confident that it would.
By 52 percent to 37 percent, most of those polled also disapproved of how Obama is handling Iran, the first time a majority has said so since he became president in 2009.
The April 16-21 telephone poll of 1,353 registered voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.
