CFR Update: Obama Steps up Defense of Iran Nuclear Deal

August 5, 2015 Daily News Brief

TOP OF THE AGENDA Obama Steps up Defense of Iran Nuclear Deal U.S. President Barack Obama will defend (NYT) last month's agreement to curb Tehran's nuclear program in a speech at American University on Wednesday. Obama is expected to argue that the decision (AP) before the U.S. Congress on the nuclear deal is the country's most significant foreign policy debate since the authorization of the Iraq war. On Tuesday, Obama met with twenty Jewish leaders (Reuters) on at the White House to appeal for their support for the deal. Secretary of State John Kerry received the support of Gulf allies Monday. Congress, which will return from recess on September 8, has until September 17 vote on the deal.

ANALYSIS "The agreement places significant limits on what Iran is permitted to do in the nuclear realm for the next ten to fifteen years. But these limits, even if respected in full, come at a steep price. The agreement almost certainly facilitates Iran's efforts to promote its national security objectives throughout the region (many of which are inconsistent with our own) over that same period," said CFR President Richard N. Haass in testimony before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee. "We did a nuclear deal. We exclusively looked at how do you take the most immediate threat away from them in order to protect the region. And if we’re going to push back against an Iran that is behaving in these ways, it is better to push back on an Iran that doesn’t have a nuclear weapons than one that does," said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in an interview with the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg. "But what the international community agrees and does with Iran now and in the near future will have broad consequences in the longer term. It is important to think ahead about what the Iran deal, including all its details, will mean the next time there is a proliferation threat to address.  The end of the nuclear nonproliferation regime, and its replacement by a new approach, or a series of differing approaches, may have been inevitable," writes Eric R. Terzuolo in the National Interest.