President Barack Obama believes the
chances of getting a nuclear agreement with Iran are now "below
50-50," according to a top Democratic senator who attended a closed-door
meeting with the President Tuesday night.
"He said in the course of the
negotiations he's been more optimistic, less optimistic. And he said that the
chances at this point are below 50-50," said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois,
the Assistant Democratic Leader and a close ally of Obama's.
The comments lowering expectations for a
deal curbing Iran's nuclear program come after negotiations on a final deal
have already blown through two deadlines and seem likely to go past a third on
Friday.
Another lawmaker briefed on the
negotiations explained to CNN that the administration has been taken aback by
last-minute Iranian refusals to give ground on revealing the past military
dimensions of the program and their insistence on lifting missile restrictions.
In a last-minute push to reach a deal by
Friday, the duration of the deal and efforts to enshrine any deal into a UN
Security Council resolution have become serious sticking points. In the
resolution, Iran has demanded a lifting of a UN arms embargo, which world
powers are currently reluctant to do.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Gen. Martin Dempsey spoke against any such easing in particularly categorical
terms on Capitol Hill Tuesday.
"Under no circumstances should we
relieve pressure on Iran relative to ballistic missile capabilities and arms
trafficking," he told a panel of lawmakers.
Sources involved with the negotiations
said red lines laid out last month by Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, have complicated the talks. The demands, delivered in a speech and
reposted on Twitter, included a shorter duration for a deal and its
restrictions on Iranian nuclear research, immediate removal of economic
sanctions once a deal is hatched and the banning of inspections at Iranian
military sites. All seemed contrary to the political framework agreed to in
April in Lausanne, Switzerland.
They sources said, however, that progress has been made on
answering lingering questions about Iran's weapons program, and that gaps have
also been narrowed on other thorny issues, such as the pace and scope of
sanctions relief and defining limits on the type of research and development
Iran will be permitted to do while the deal is in effect.
"There is no last-minute monkey
wrench though," one Obama administration official said. "We are
seeing pretty standard Iranian tactics that we were ready for."
Still, the sources would not predict
whether a deal would be done by Friday. Most of the issues, the sources said,
will take high-level political decisions by Iranian leadership that they may
not be willing to make this week.
"If Iran made the decision and
said, 'fine, we have a deal,' we could have a deal today and finish up writing
the agreement in a couple of days," a senior administration official said.
"But they may need to show that (they) are willing to walk away for a while
and come back later. They also may need to go back one more time to the Supreme
Leader."
Durbin noted that Obama made his
comments before getting a daily update from Secretary of State John Kerry, who
is spearheading the Vienna-based nuclear talks for the U.S.
"I think it's an indication it's
crunch time. He said he's not going to accept a weak or bad deal. He knows
what's at stake here," Durbin explained.
One diplomat pointed out, "It is
possible (that) there comes a limit, where everyone needs to go home, regroup
and think about things and come back to finish. But nobody is in the market for
long extensions here."
For now, though, diplomats said they
continue to make progress, though one Western diplomat acknowledged,
"There will come a point when we are not making progress and then it will
be time to come home."
But the sources said that nobody in the
six-power negotiating group, known as the P5+1, is concerned about the optics
of the prolonged negotiation, and they will stay as long as the negotiations
are productive and gaps are being narrowed.
In an op-ed published Wednesday in the
Financial Times, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote,
"Getting to 'yes' necessitates the courage to take the higher ground,
sufficient fortitude to be flexible, the audacity to shatter old habits, and
most of all, a vision for a better future."
Sources said that Iranian negotiators
seem to have an inflated expectation of the time and ease by which they can
take nuclear steps called for in the deal before sanctions can be lifted.
"Our biggest concern is not that
they aren't serious about this," one senior administration official said.
"They think it will be easy for them to do what they have to do. These
things called for in the deal will take time. It will be hard for them
technically."
When asked how negotiators would know
whether to walk away or stay at the table, a senior administration official
briefing reporters late Tuesday said, "you know when that moment
comes."
"You always get to a place where
you're at a precipice," the official said. "You're either going to
pull back from the precipice, or you're going to go over the cliff."
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