Senior Trump administration officials on Sunday mounted a vigorous defence of the emerging US-Iran agreement, saying it bears little resemblance to the nuclear accord negotiated under former President Barack Obama, even as Obama-era officials questioned whether the new arrangement would ultimately be much different.
The debate unfolded across multiple television interviews on Sunday as the White House moved closer to a memorandum of understanding with Iran that President Donald Trump said could be signed later in the day.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said the proposed agreement would avoid what he described as major shortcomings of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“We are not going to have these massive loopholes,” Waltz said, adding that the earlier agreement lacked sufficient verification measures and gave Iran too much flexibility over inspections.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered an even sharper critique.
“The JCPOA was a path to a bomb; this deal will be a wall against a bomb,” Hegseth said during an interview with CBS News.
Administration officials said the proposed agreement would require Iran to surrender its highly enriched uranium, abandon enrichment capabilities and accept strict verification requirements before receiving any economic benefits.
“There will be no money released to Iran until they perform,” Hegseth said.
“There’s no trust here, and we’re going to verify everything.”
Waltz also stressed that any sanctions relief would be tied to Iranian compliance.
“This is all about verification,” he said.
“No one on this team is going to take the Iranians at their word.”
However, the administration’s characterisation of the deal was challenged by former President Barack Obama, whose administration spent years negotiating the original nuclear accord.
“It is doubtful that any agreement that emerges will be significantly different from, or a substantial improvement on, the deal we negotiated in the first place, which worked effectively for a long period before the United States withdrew from it,” Obama said in an interview aired by ABC News.
-IANS
