Iraqi women walk past a poster depicting images of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at al-Firdous Square in Baghdad on Feb. 12, 2014.AHMED SAAD/Reuters
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke Thursday for the first time about the framework for a nuclear limitation agreement arrived at last week by Iran and the five permanent members of UN Security Council plus Germany – His words threw cold water on those anticipating a speedy final agreement.
The Ayatollah expressed skepticism about the whole process and put the vaunted Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in proper perspective: "What has been done so far does not guarantee an agreement, nor its contents, nor even that the negotiations will continue to the end," he said, casting doubt that the June 30 deadline for completing negotiations would be met.
He made clear also what he thought of the parties to this agreement. "I trust our negotiators," the Iranian leader said, "but I'm really worried because the other side is into lying and breaching promises."
An example of this, he argued, is a "fact sheet" produced by the White House shortly after the talks concluded April 2. "Most of it was contrary to what was agreed," he insisted, adding that "they [the Americans] always deceive and breach promises."
In fact, even before the fact sheet was published on the U.S. State Department website, the Iranians released a document of their own. They called theirs "A Summary of the Solutions Reached as an Understanding for Reaching a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action," and its version of what was agreed differs substantially from that of the Americans.
In its Summary of Solutions, Iran insists that nothing agreed to on April 2 is binding on the parties. The Americans, for their part, argue that the April 2nd "parameters," as they call them, form the foundation for a final agreement.
One of those parameters, Washington says, is that Iran's enrichment of uranium will be restricted to very low levels for 15 years. Iran contends the two sides agreed only to a 10-year limitation period, following which Iran can ramp up its enrichment.
On research into nuclear matters, Iran says the solutions arrived at provide for relatively unfettered research. The United States maintains research will be restricted to approved areas only.
As for the sanctions that brought Iran to the negotiating table, Tehran claims that all economic and other sanctions are to be lifted at the start of the agreement, while U.S. officials insist sanctions will be "suspended" in phases only as Iran complies with the terms of the agreement (shutting down thousands of centrifuges, reducing current stockpiles of enriched uranium, removing the core of its heavy-water reactor to eliminate the production of plutonium etc).
And on the vital issue of inspections by officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Washington claims that military facilities are to be included in these visits, whereas Tehran insists no such intrusive inspections will ever take place.
Of the many differences between the parties it is the last two that will bedevil negotiators.
"We will not sign any agreement, unless all economic sanctions are totally lifted on the first day of the implementation of the deal," Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said also on Thursday, at an event marking Iran's annual Nuclear Technology Day, which celebrates the country's nuclear achievements.
The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, agreed. Sanctions "should be lifted all together on the same day of the agreement, not six months or one year later," he said in his televised remarks. "If lifting of sanctions is supposed to be connected to a process, then why do we negotiate?"
The U.S. fact sheet, on the other hand, says that "the architecture of U.S. nuclear-related sanctions on Iran will be retained for much of the duration of the deal and allow for snap-back of sanctions in the event of significant non-performance."
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday explained these "snap-back" sanctions as part of an automatic process to punish Iran for misbehavior. Which is why, he said, sanctions will only be "suspended" when Iran does behave, not "lifted."
Not surprisingly, this notion of keeping Iran on an elastic tether does not sit well with President Rouhani. In his reply to the concept he said that in the Lausanne negotiations both sides "always talked about lifting economic, financial, and banking sanctions. We never talked about the 'suspension' of the sanctions, and if that were the case, no agreement would form."
As for inspecting military premises, the difference between the two sides couldn't be starker. "The country's military officials are not permitted at all to allow the foreigners to cross these boundaries," Ayatollah Khamenei argued, "or stop the country's defensive development under the pretext of supervision and inspection."
For the Americans, Mr. Kerry insisted that military inspections "will be part of a final agreement." The Secretary of State insisted: "If there's going to be a deal, it will be done."
President Rouhani hinted at where these talks might well be heading, indicating that the self-imposed deadline for agreement of June 30 was in no way sacred.
"They might say that we have only three months left," he said. "Well, if three months becomes four months the sky won't come falling down."
But it might come falling down if four months becomes 14 months or 24 months. The Middle East's other major powers will not wait forever.
Leave aside the possibility of Israel taking military action. It is the region's Arab countries that are likely to act first.
Leading Saudi commentators such as Jamal Kashoggi and Turki al-Faisal, who reflect the royal view, decried this week what they called the U.S. "abandonment" of its Arab allies.
Unless Washington reverses course, they argue, the only remaining option for Saudi Arabia and its true friends is to take matters into their own hands and acquire a full nuclear weapons program to match that of Iran.