President Barack Obama is intensifying his public campaign to win support for the nuclear deal with Iran, with plans to deliver a speech next week outlining his case in favor of the agreement.
Mr. Obama will deliver the speech Wednesday at American University in Washington, D.C., White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Friday.
The pact faces deep skepticism on Capitol Hill, and the president is trying to persuade enough lawmakers to support the July 14 agreement to keep it from unraveling. Congress is expected to vote in September, after a 60-day review of the deal, on whether to approve or reject it.
As part of the White House effort, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz made an appearance at Friday’s White House press briefing. He addressed the concerns lawmakers have about a so-called side deal between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency, saying there is no side deal. Commenting on IAEA Secretary General Yukiya Amano’s planned trip to Washington, which is also on Wednesday, to meet with members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Moniz said, “I think it’ll be very helpful.”
Mr. Obama has said he would veto a resolution to reject the deal. The White House has little expectation of gaining any Republican support and is focused on winning over enough Democrats to stop an override of the president’s veto.
A lengthy speech is one of Mr. Obama’s long-favored ways of conveying his policies to Americans. His address on Iran coincides with Congress’s August break, when lawmakers are expected to come under pressure to reject the deal from pro-Israel groups that oppose it.
The White House chose American University as the venue because it’s where President John F. Kennedy delivered a speech more than 50 years ago about using diplomacy to confront the threat of nuclear war. Mr. Earnest said Mr. Obama plans to use the moment to put the Iran deal in context of America’s “broader national security interests.”

The Wall Street Journal, Washington, 31 July 2015