Back. President obama for all the objections of Prime Minister netanyahu, or for that matter the some of the Republican Leadership thats already spoken, none of them have presented to me or the American People a better alternative. Gwen we examine what happens when history gives way to doubt. Plus a look at whos on first. When it comes to money. In the evermore crowded 2016 president ial race. Depending on how you count, it may not be who you think. Covering the week, indira lakshmanan, Foreign Affairs correspondent for bloomberg news. David sanger National Security correspondent for the new yo times. Michael crowley, senior Foreign Policy correspondent for politico. And Jeanne CummingsPolitical Editor for the wall street journal. Awardwinning reporting and analysis covering history as it happens. From our nations capital, this is Washington Week with gwen ifill. Corporate funding for Washington Week is provided by how much money do you have in your pocket right now . I have 40. 21. Could something that small make an impact on something as big as your retirement . I dont think so. Well, if you start putting that money toward your retirement every week, and let it grow over time, for 20, 30 years, that retirement challenge might not seem so big after all. Additional funding is provided by newmans own foundation. Donating all profits from newmans own Food Products to charity. And nourishing the common good. The corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Once again from washington, moderator gwen ifill. Gwen good evening. It took weeks months, years negotiating table spats and walkouts. Physicists on call. Politicians on edge. But the u. S. And its partners finally struck a deal this week on a farreaching nonproliferation agreement that everyone at the table said means the end of Irans Nuclear ambitions. President obama with this deal we cut off every single one of irans pathways to a nuclear program. A Nuclear Weapons program. And Irans Nuclear program will be under severe limits for many years. Without a deal those pathways remain open. There would be no limits to Irans Nuclear program and iran could move closer to a nuclear bomb. Gwen even before the ink was dry, critics pounced. How would we hold iran to its promises . How extensive would those limits be . And by doing away with punishing sanctions, arent we rewarding enemies who still seek to do our allies harm . They gamble that in 10 years time irans terrorist regime will change while removing any incentive for it to do so. President obama has decided to place all his chips on the fact that the death to america chants will soon disappear. This committee has to ask itself whether we are willing to roll the dice, too. Gwen so its complicated. But fortunately for us we have three of washingtons smartest Foreign Policy journalists at the table to help answer some of those questions. Two of them fresh off the plane practically from vienna. Lets start by talking about how this deal came together. Because this was not a foregone conclusion was it, indira . Not at all. As you said this has been going on for 2 1 2 years really. If you count it back to almadi, kazakhstan and no guarantee that this was going to happen. And we were there for 18 days straight of negotiations. This was meant to be the final push. And i think there were several days when it wasnt entirely clear whether this was maybe going to get bumped back to september. I think, though, that john kerry and his team realized that this was their moment. And they were going to have to seize it. And it was going to be even harder to try to delay. It wasnt going to make it any better and a deadline is a forcing mechanism. And, you know, we wrote stories, david and i, both about sort of what happened behind the scenes. And there were incredible moments of emotion, including shouting at each other and saying do you even want this deal . And threats of walkouts and a lot of drama. And gwen my favorite was never threaten an iranian. Never threaten an iranian which became a hashtag with people showing persian kittens on their hind legs and things. Yes. All of that drama happened because i think both iran and the p5 plus one realized this was their one shot. This was their shot to get tht best possible terms they could. They werent going to be able to reopen and renegotiate it and push as hard as they possibly could now. Gwen david, when you finally got the agreement, what surprised you . What were the surprise areas of agreement as opposed to the disagreements we heard so much about leading up to it . Well, the surprise areas of agreement had been somewhat telegraphed at the previous session. And was on switzerland. Where they got to most of the nuclear restrictions. But the big surprise, i think, that indira and i both saw when we were in vienna was that in the end game, some issues came up that really had nothing to do with Irans Nuclear program. So let me give you an example. One of the nuclearrelated sanctions imposed in 2006 during the Bush Administration was a conventional arms trade ban on iran. They couldnt buy arms. They couldnt sell them. And then a ballistic missilerelated ban. The iranians and by the u. N. And this was done by the united nations. The iranians said this is one of the nuclearrelated sanctions. So if we agree to Everything Else here, thats got togoome off with Everything Else. This is a big problem for secretary kerry. Because if iran both has an inflow of a large amount of money from the sanctions being lifted. Gwen right. And the ability to go by and sell arms sell arms it will imflame whats happening in iraq syria yemen, hezbollah and so forth. Gwen before you go on i want us to play a little bit of what secretary kerry said to my colleague Judy Woodruff today in washington. Talking about sanctions. And then we will respond on the other side. Sure. Secretary kerry you have a choice. Are you prepared to do what the u. N. Resolution says . Which is lift the sanctions over a period of time and in return for their negotiating . By the way they didnt just come to the negotiations. They have cut a deal. Or do you want to go to war . Because the alternative to this deal is they will do whatever they want. We will lose the sanctions. We will lose the support of the global community. If the congress of the United States turns this down, there will be conflict in the region because as the only alternative. Judy michael, gwen how much was riding on this for secretary kerry . He obviously was a senator. But he has to go back to his former colleagues. Hes got to sell this. And you can see hes already in it. First of all. As a matter of his own personal legacy we talked about the president s legacy and things have broken president s way recently. And you hear some people around him saying he actually didnt need this deal for his own legacy as badly as he might have because he has had a good run. In our superficial calculationness washington. John kerry his political career back to the 1980s has been hounded by the criticism he talks a lot but doesnt have a lot of signature accomplishments, legislative achievements. He won the democratic nomination but not presidency. For him this means a huge amount. There is a real battle now. Because i dont think its a totally foregone conclusion that this deal will survive in the u. S. Congress. I think the odds are very high that it will. Congress would need a two thirds majority, a supermajority to override a veto. If you had some a dozen or so democrats defect, they could uphold it and bring the deal down. So whats happening now, the process isnt over. Theres a sales pitch under way. And when you see the president , his press conference under way or you see john kerry making the rounds of these interviews trying to make a case to the u. S. Congress that says this is the best its going to get. Theres no realistic alternative. You cant tear it down now. Weve gone too far. And the alternative is much worse at this point. Even as they were trying to assure reassure other allies in the region that this isnt as bad as you might think. Gwen and the president talking about the logic of the deal. And i the story i wrote was focused on this, and i thought of his love for mr. Spock which he has expressed, lodge and i can science. The white house is coming really hard with the science on this deal. Trying to make it seem as though theres really no counterargument at all. That drives opponents crazy by the way. What about the science of the deal, guys . Well, theres a reason that ernie monees, former head of Nuclear Physics at m. I. T. And now the energy secretary, was brought to this deal. Because there was a second negotiation going on. That in some ways was more fascinating than the one between secretary kerry and minister javad zarif, the Iranian Foreign minister and that was between monees and his iranian counterpart and also went to m. I. T. As a student. That conversation was an effort to depoliticize the issue. By coming up with Technical Solutions to what was essentially a political problem. And they managed to do it. Much of it down in the wine cellar of the palace hotel which was down so deep in the rocks of this old site that the iranians began to call it fordo which is the name of their underground enrichment how many bottles of 60,000. Looked like a dungeon down there. It did look like a dungeon. We were told defen actively there is no wine in fordo. There was plenty of Radioactive Material which has to come out under this agreement. But the idea here was take the politics out. The problem is that when this goes to congress if your vision of what the deal was going to be was take apart all of Irans Nuclear facilities, dismantle everything theres nothing that earnest monees can say to you that youll like. Gwen there you go. The accountability of iran seems to be the Sticking Point not only at that table but also here. How do how do they reassure, is it possible i expos, for the administration to reassure anybody that iran will be accountable to this deal . Look, i think the Administration Needs to do a better job of explaining why this deal is not great for iran. Its not a gift to iran. Because the other side has been able to sort of appropriate this argument in saying this is a gift. All the sanctions are being released. Theyre allowed to enrich. Its not good. What what they could turn that argument on the head and say wait a second. You know, theyre reducing by two thirds the number of century fugse and centrifuges and this low amount of uraniumra enriched and constant and invasive sanctions by the iaea. And there has been this controversy thats arisen in the last couple of days about this 24 days that iran will have 24 days if theres a suspect site. And the obama Administration Needs to explain hey look, thats on top of the socalled additional protocol. This is extra. Otherwise the arguments can go on forever. Gwen this is what susan rice said to me the other night on the newshour and what they all said and they have this snapback sanctions which is my new favorite word, snapback sanctions and once we prove that theyre not sticking to the deal we can reimpose the sanctions. We have partially lifted. But its not clear at least to members of congress whether that would work. David, ill defer to you. Quickly, ill say what fascinates me about how that part of the deal and some other things having to do with inspections were structured was the degree to which it was design to prevent russia and china from screwing things up essentially. They did do a decent job in the deal of creating, you know, mechanisms and joint commissions where all the votes are winnable without the participation of russia, china, and iran. U. N. Sanctions. But the u. S. Can snap back its own sanctions unilaterally if it wants to. The only question at that point is are the european nations and russia and china going to abide by u. S. Secondary sanctions to this point . And they wont if they think that iran is not really cheating. But thats one really important point. People talk about this gold rush back to iran. I think thats really premature. I think a gold crawl. Because businesses know that these sanctions could come back any time. And they dont want to take the revving right away. Gwen john kerry made that point to judy today as well. Thats right. They can. And iranians are not without options if the United States or the u. N. Does the snapback. Because they would be free of their responsibilities under this as well. So theres a little bit of a poison pill built into this. But i think it is worth examining the question that secretary kerry brought up in that conversation with judy. Business what were your other alternatives . The president brought this up as well. Im not sure the only other alternative was war. But it is certainly true that if somebody took military action, the israelis, for example, or the u. S. , against the iranian program, the internal intelligence estimates were it sets the program back three or four years. And then it goes deeply underground. And you cant bomb knowledge as they say. So they would rebuild it. The cyberattacks that the United States and israel together did on iran set them back maybe a year. So 10 to 15 years isnt bad. Its also not as good as permanent. And theyre taking the gamble that over that 10 to 15 years, or theyre believing that iran will little by little open up. And that trade will help open up. And bring iran and snetchize iran to come back into the fold of the International Community and not be a rogue state and not do terrorism now. That may be too optimistic. That it may not actually happen that way. But in the meantime, they do at least have verification. And means for making sure that iran is keeping up its side of the bargain. Gwen michael, you were at thehe president ial News Conference the other day and so anxious to talk about this deal. That he started asking himself questions. Because he didnt trust reporters would ask him. He came prepared to answer it. That was a different way to do a News Conference. But one of the things that came up and there was much commentary about because the way the question was formulated but still an essential question and what about the other things that were never on the table . Which is to say american hostages. Why wasnt that ever on the table . And does that still how did it become an assumption on the part of people who watch these things that somehow there would be a deal for the release of american hostages . Well, to the extent there was an assumption among some people, it may have been a combination of Wishful Thinking and just the perfectly natural conclusion that if were talking to the iranians about these hard issues and theres going to be this very difficult political tradeoff, that this would be part of it. By this, just to clarify there are three americans who are imprisoned in iran. I believe sort of in the judicial system who are being charged, one of them probably best known in this town, jason rizian, a Washington Post correspondent in tehran and a fourth american Robert Levinson who disappeared under mysterious circumstances and i dont think hes formally in the judicial system there. And also when the diplomat he can breakthrough with cuba was unveiled there was essentially a swap of prisoners. And so i think that set a hopeful precedent. Major garrett of cbs asked the president a very provocative question and implying at least from the president s point of view that the president was celebrating a deal that left these gwen he actually used the word celebrating. It wasnt just implied from the president s point of view. And i was sitting pretty much right behind Major Garrett and the look was fierce as sbome obama stared him down. To wrap up my answer the administrations position was we cant its like negotiating with isis. We cant make con segs on the nuclear question because iran is Holding People unfairly in some cases or all cases maybe de facto hostages. Thats rewarding hostage taking. The central argument the president has tried to make here is lets assume iran is going to be a malicious actor. Or at least a malign actor for the next 10 to 15 years. Maybe as long as the Supreme Leader is alive. We dont know who his successor would be. If thats the case, youre better off with an iran that cant threaten a threshold Nuclear State than one that is. So heth focused like a laser beam on the nuclear. And it is interesting that some of the opposition thats come up now are raising issues outside the nuclear arena. That may tell you that they think that they dont have much of a ground on the nuclear side. Gwen lets talk about how hard its going to be. Especially on capitol hill by listening to a little bit of what senator bob corker head of the Senate ForeignRelations Committee had to say about the deal at least when it first came out. Senator corker over the next 60 days, were going to go through this in great detale. Were going to have a thoughtful and deliberate process. Those who believe that this truly is going to keep iran from getting a Nuclear Weapon will vote for it. Those who believe that