President Obama’s address to the nation on the Iran nuclear deal reached on Tuesday in Vienna: “A comprehensive long term deal with Iran would prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon. This deal demonstrates that American diplomacy can bring about real and meaningful change, change that makes our country and the world safer and more secure…”
Today, because America negotiated from the position of strength and principal, we have stopped the spread of the nuclear weapons in this region.  Because of this deal the international community would be able to verify that the Islamic Republic of Iran will not develop a nuclear weapon.
This deal meets every single one of the bottom line that we have established when we achieved a framework earlier this spring. Every pathway to a nuclear weapon is cutoff, and the inspection and the transparency regime necessary to verify that objective will be put in place.
Because of this deal, Iran would not produce highly enriched uranium and weapons’ grad plutonium that formed the raw materials necessary for a nuclear bomb. Because of this deal, Iran will remove two third of its installed centrifuges, the machines necessary to produce highly enriched uranium for a bomb and store them under constant international supervision. Iran will not use its advanced centrifuges to produce enriched uranium for the next decade. Iran will also get rid of %98 of its stockpile of enriched uranium.
To put that in to perspective, Iran currently has a stockpile that could produce up to 10 nuclear weapons. Because of this deal, that stockpile will be reduced to a fraction of what would be required for a single weapon. This stockpile limitation will last for 15 years. Because of this deal Iran will modify the core of its reactor in Arak, so that it will not produce weapon’s grade plutonium, and it has agreed to ship the spent fuel from the reactor out of the country for the lifetime of the reactor. For at least the next 15 years, Iran will not build any new heavy water reactors.
Because of this deal, we will for the first time be in the position to verify all of these commitments. That means this deal is not built on trust, it is built on verification. Inspectors will have 24/7 access to Iran’s key nuclear facilities. Iran {International inspectors} will have access to Iran’s entire nuclear supply chain, its uranium mines and mills, its conversion facilities and its centrifuge manufacturing and storage facilities. This insures that Iran will not be able to divert materials from known facilities to covert ones. Some of these transparency measures will be in place for 25 years. Because of this deal, inspectors will also be able to access any suspicious location. Put simply, the Organization responsible for the inspections, the IAEA, will have access, “where necessary, when necessary.” That arrangement is permanent. And the IAEA has also reached an agreement with Iran to get access that it needs to complete its investigation of the possible military dimensions of Iran’s past nuclear research.
Finally, Iran is permanently prohibited from pursuing a nuclear weapon under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which provided the basis for the international community’s efforts to apply pressure on Iran.
As Iran takes steps to implement this deal, it will receive relief from sanctions that we put in place because of Iran’s nuclear program. Both America’s own sanctions and sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council. This relief would be phased in; Iran must complete key nuclear steps before it begins to receive new sanctions relief. And over the course of the next decade, Iran must abide by the deal before additional sanctions are lifted, including 5 years for restrictions related to arms, and 8 years restrictions related to ballistic missiles. All of this would be memorialized and endorsed in a new United Nations Security Council resolution. And if Iran violates the deal, all these sanctions would snap back in to place. So there is a very clear incentive for Iran to follow through and there are very real consequences for a violation.
That’s the deal. It has the full backing of the international community. Congress will now have an opportunity to review the details and my administration stands ready to provide extensive briefings on how this will move forward.
As the American people and the Congress review the deal, it will be important to consider the alternative. Consider what happens to the world without this deal. Without this deal there is no scenario where the world joins us in sanctioning Iran until it completely dismantles its nuclear program. Nothing we know about the Iranian government suggests that it would capitulate under that kind of pressure. And the world would not support an effort to permanently sanction Iran in to submission. We put sanctions in place to get a diplomatic resolution, and that is what we have done. Without this deal there would not be agreement upon limitations for Iranian nuclear program. Iran could produce, operate and test more and more centrifuges. Iran could fuel a reactor capable of producing plutonium for a bomb and we would not have any of the inspections that allow us to detect a covert nuclear weapons’ program. Another word, no deal means no lasting constrains on Iran’s nuclear program…
No deal means a greater chance of more war in the Middle East. If, in the worst case scenario, Iran violates the deal, the same options that are available to me today will be available to any US president in the future, and I have no doubt that 10 or 15 years from now the person who holds this office will be in a far stronger position with Iran further away from a weapon and with the inspections and the transparency that allow us to monitor the Iranian program. For this reason, I believe it would be irresponsible to walk away from this deal. But on such tough issue, it is important that the American people and their representatives in the Congress get a full opportunity to review the deal. After all the details matter… We are dealing with a country that has been a sworn adversary of the United States for over 35 years.
So I welcome the robust debate in the Congress on this issue and I welcome the scrutiny of the details of this agreement. But I will remind Congress that you don’t make deals like this with your friends…
So I would veto any legislation that prevents the successful implementation of this deal. We do not have to except an inevitable spiral in to conflict. We certainly shouldn’t seek it. This is not the time for politics or posturing. Tough talks from Washington do not solve problems…
That does not mean that this deal will resolve all of our differences with Iran. We share the concerns expressed by many of our friends in the Middle East, including Israel and the Gulf States about Iran’s support for terrorism and its use of proxies to destabilize the region…
Meanwhile we will maintain our own sanctions related to Iran’s support for terrorism, its ballistic missile program and its human rights violations. We will continue our unprecedented efforts to strengthened Israel’s security. Efforts that go beyond any American administration has done before…