U.S. President Barack Obama holds a news conference in the East Room of the White House July 15, 2015 in Washington, DC. Obama took questions from reporters about the agreement between the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany and Iran over that country's nuclear program.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The world's a safer place, President Barack Obama declared Wednesday, in a strident defence of his diplomatic gambit to make a nuclear-limitation deal with Tehran.
"This deal makes our country and the world safer and more secure," the U.S. President said as critics ranging from Republicans at home to Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu abroad denounced it as capitulation and appeasement.
Mr. Obama shot back, challenging those critics to offer a better alternative short of war with Iran.
"What I haven't heard is what is your preferred alternative," he demanded. "Either the issue of Iran obtaining the bomb is resolved diplomatically, … or it's resolved through force, through war."
The President said the controversial pact doesn't preclude a resort to military action if Iran reneges. But he called the deal with Tehran a once-in-a-lifetime chance to remove a dire threat to global security through concerted international diplomacy.
It may also be a legacy-defining moment for Mr. Obama both if it succeeds and if it fails.
The deal requires Tehran to dismantle much of its existing nuclear program and delay – for at least a decade – further significant work on weapons-capable enrichment. It's offered a "historic chance to pursuer a safer and more secure world," Mr. Obama said in a wide-ranging and assertive defence of his controversial move to engage with Tehran's Islamic theocracy.
The alternative, he said, was the apocalyptic nightmare of a nuclear arms race in the world's most dangerous region.
"Without a deal, we risk even more war in the Middle East, and other countries in the region would feel compelled to pursue their own nuclear programs, threatening a nuclear arms race in the most volatile region in the world," Mr. Obama said.
The President defied his critics, insisting the inspection provisions were sufficient to catch Iran should it attempt to cheat.
And while he held out the possibility of future engagement with Tehran – the United States and Iran have been bitter enemies for more than three decades – he insisted the nuclear deal didn't herald a new era of warmer relations between the two nations.
"Unlike Cuba, we're not normalizing relations, so the contacts [with Iran] will be limited," Mr. Obama said in the East Room of the White House.
He said Iran's support of radical Shia militias, of Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen all remained issues of grave concern to the United States but didn't preclude the benefits to global security and American national interest of the nuclear-limitation pact.
"It's a lot easier for us to check Iran's nefarious activities … if they don't have a bomb," he said.
The President, under fire from Republicans, as well as some Democrats, who want the U.S. Congress to block the deal, held out hope that support for the pact might grow during the 60-day review process.
"My hope is that if everyone in Congress evaluated this agreement based on the facts, not on politics, not on posturing. … the majority should approve this deal," he said, but added he doubted that would happen.
To the contrary, Republican leaders in Congress and especially among the more than a dozen declared presidential candidates have been heaping opprobrium on the deal and the President for making it since it was announced Tuesday.
With Republicans holding a majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, passage of a "resolution of disapproval" seems likely. Mr. Obama has vowed to veto any such effort and likely has sufficient support among Democrats to prevent opponents from attaining the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto.
The President said he expected the "debate to be robust" but urged Washington's bitterly divided lawmakers not to overlook the overarching strategic goal delivered by the pact: that Iran won't get the bomb.
"I hope we don't lose sight of the larger picture," he said, adding: "With this deal, we cut off every single one of Iran's pathways to a nuclear-weapons program."
After years of negotiations culminating in a intense 18 days of final talks in Vienna, the deal was agreed to by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States – plus Germany, the so-called P5+1 group of major powers. But it ultimately hinged on the willingness of Iran and the United States to set aside deep, mutual mistrust.
"I challenge those who object to this agreement … to explain specifically where it is they think this agreement doesn't prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon," Mr. Obama said, adding that if those critics believe the only "alternative is that we should bring Iran to heel using military force, then they should say so."