but it s worth a chance, right? it s better than going to war. i don t know. it s too early to pass judgment. the real challenge is that iran remains very close and they might try to manipulate the americans or the west of the p5-plus-1. what s the bottom line? did the president do the right thing? the president probably didn t have a choice but to negotiate with the iranians, but the real test will come. it s waiting for the rest of the world if iran is not blocked from turning into military nuclear power, we will all regret it because the consequences are far much more dangerous than those that might stem out even from a direct physical attack on the infrastructure if nothing else would work. i think what s missing from the picture right now is that iranians will hear beyond closed doors and a clear irrevocable
a big one. whether it s historic or not, it depends who you ask when it comes to that. the bottom line is this. iran has agreed to cut back on building nuke clearly enrichment facilities. to dilute its stockpile of uranium and allow for daily international inspections. in return now, iran s going to get a break from some of the sanctions that have been levied against it. this deal coming after days of intense talks with six world powers, and it was a second round of talks. you had the u.s., britain, china, russia, france, and germany known as the p5-plus-1, the permanent members of the u.n. security council. this deal is an interim deal. it lasts six months. it is in place while a permanent deal is being sought. president obama says it is a good first step. however, israel, other western
you re there, as well. what was going on in the oval office when you met with the president saturday night? well, i hadn t slept in awhile, wolf. but what i can say is what we were doing is getting updates from the team in geneva on the finally text of the agreement they were negotiating. throughout the day, the president was in touch with negotiators. he spoke to secretary kerry about 3:00 in the afternoon our time. they were literally sending language back of the agreement they were negotiating with the iranians and the p5-plus-1. the president was reviewing that because we had a sense we could close the deal on saturday. did the president sign off on every paragraph basically in that document that was released yesterday? he basically did, wolf. essentially, he s been tracking this negotiation over the course of the last several weeks. he talked to secretary kerry before he went out to geneva on friday. and then on saturday, secretary kerry was calling him updating him what was
seemed like we were close although it was hard to believe, it seemed like there was a lot of optimism the last go round that the p5-plus-1 were going to come up with an agreement here. it seems like france was the one that said it s not going to happen. now it seems israel not even involved in the talk might it be the block here. there was essentially an agreement between the u.s. and the iran ran side but the other states had some changes, none as many as the french had. that s going to get overcome i think. there s a high likelihood there will be a deal this coming thursday and friday. the question is what happens after that deal. when you talk about israel, let s talk about that a little bit. the u.s. and israel very, very close allies. and israel s taking none of this. they don t see anything positive in this so far. how does that impact the u.s.-israel relationship? there are those in israel who say their government is playing too strong of a hand and it
unconvincing. the meeting was set up to try to stop congress from imposing a new round of economic sanctions, a possible death blow for diplomacy. but senator bob corker said there were precious few details on what any new deal would look like, adding he was very disappointed. senator marc kirk called the briefing fairly anti-israel. a senator aid told the new york times anytime he anybody would say anything about what would the israelis say, they would get cut off and kerry would say stop listening to the israelis on this. and while there is some support in the senate for cutting a deal with iran, several high profile republicans are simply shaking their heads. published reports are accurate, we owe our french allies a great deal of credit for preventing the major powers in the negotiations to so-called p5 plus 1 from making a bad, bad, bad interim deal with iran.