President Obama is insisting that American attitudes toward the Iran nuclear agreement will shift in favor of the deal over time, once people can see how it’s implemented.
In a wide-ranging pre-taped interview with National Public Radio released Monday, Obama defended the agreement and said having international inspectors on the ground in Iran would eventually win over a skeptical U.S. public.
“When this agreement is implemented and we’ve seen centrifuges coming out of facilities like Fordow and Natanz, and we’ve got inspectors on the ground and it becomes clear that Iran in fact is abiding by this agreement, then attitudes will change, because people will recognize that, in fact, whatever parade of horribles was presented in opposition have not come true,” he told NPR’s Steve Inskeep.
Recent polls have shown that the American public is divided on the deal, although opposition to it has grown since the deal was finalized. Last week, a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll showed Americans are evenly divided, with one-third backing the deal, one-third opposed to it and one-third saying they don’t know enough to have an opinion.
In mid-June, the same survey found that 36 percent of the public supported the deal while 17 percent opposed it and 46 percent said they didn’t know enough to have an opinion.
The president’s confidence that public opinion will shift in favor of the deal over time is a slight shift from his message in a major address on the topic last week. In that speech, he acknowledged the great distrust Congress and the U.S. public feel for Iran, and tried to assure them that inspectors will be on hand to catch them if they cheat.
“The bottom line is,” he said, “if Iran cheats, we can catch them, and we will.”
The president also tried to allay concerns about the diminished breakout time for Tehran to obtain a nuclear weapon as key parts of the deal sunset in 10 and 15 years.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has criticized the breakout aspect of the deal because as the agreement begins to expire, the time it would take for Iran to attain a nuclear weapon goes back to just a few months, near zero.
Obama acknowledged that the breakout time as the deal sunsets goes back to roughly just a few months, but said the international inspectors will provide such a transparent window on the program that the U.S. and the international community can respond.
“The point is, is that we will know when they are doing it in such a way that we can respond,” he said.
“But this argument that’s been made also doesn’t make sense,” Obama said. “If in fact the breakout times now are a few months, and we’re able to push that breakout time out to a year so that we have more time and space to see whether or not Iran is cheating on the an agreement, kicking out inspectors, going for a nuclear weapon, if the breakout time is extended for 15 years and then it goes back to where it is right now, why is that a bad deal?”
The interview was taped before the anniversary of Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Mo., and the shooting of a black man by police Sunday night. In reaction, Obama said he feels a “great urgency” to get as much done on race relations as possible before the end of his presidency, but he also said he worked quietly on the issue early on without much fanfare.
“What is true is that there has been an awakening around the country to some problems in race relations, in police-community relations that aren’t new, they date back for decades. Because of smartphones and cameras and, you know, social media, I think people have become more aware of them, both black and white,” he said.
On criminal justice reform, Obama said he is encouraged that some Republicans in Congress are working hard to deal with problems of prison crowding and writing legislation to reduce problems with mandatory minimums for drug crimes, as well as rehabilitation. With just a year and a half to go in his presidency, Obama said he is eager to make progress on the issue.
“Instead of having a year and a half behind me and six and a half years in front of me, I now have six and a half years behind me and a year and a half in front of me, so I gotta keep moving,” he said.
