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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