The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has noted that, in his speech this week at the American University in defense of his nuclear deal with Iran, President Barack Obama falsely claimed that Iran was under a “permanent” prohibition on nuclear weapons. This contradicts what he himself has admitted as possible, namely that, in  13-15 years, “the breakout times would have shrunk almost down to zero.” President Obama also falsely claimed that that Iranian extremists who chanted ‘Death to America’ at Iranian rallies were those opposed to deal, not those who negotiated it –– surely a surprise to President Hasan Rouhani, who both negotiated the deal and led chants of ‘Death to America’ at recent rallies after signing the agreement. He also falsely claimed that only the Israeli government is opposed to this nuclear deal, when in fact many Middle Eastern governments have expressed alarm. Additionally, President Obama smeared his Congressional opponents of this deal as being in league with elements in the Iranian hierarchy who were critical of the deal, insultingly suggesting that these Iranians should “caucus with the Republicans.”

The ZOA has provided the following critique of President Barack Obama’s speech in defense of the Iranian nuclear deal his Administration negotiated. President Obama’s most important mis-statements follow below, with the ZOA’s critique following:

The nuclear deal “permanently prohibits Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon”:
ZOA: Untrue. By his own admission in an interview in April, President Obama admitted as a “relevant fear” that, as a consequence of the Lausanne framework deal prefiguring the actually deal signed in Vienna that we now have, “In year 13, 14, 15 [from this year], they have advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium fairly rapidly, and at that point the breakout times would have shrunk almost down to zero.” Such a scenario obviously doesn’t preclude Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon; at best it delays it, assuming Iran complies with the agreement.

“It cuts off all of Iran’s pathways to a bomb. It contains the most comprehensive inspection and verification regime ever negotiated to monitor a nuclear program”:
ZOA: Untrue. Inspections are limited to certain declared sites, military sites are off-limits, unknown sites are of course subject to no inspection at all. Inspection of violations at these limited number of sites can occur only after 24 days, perhaps more, permitting Iran to scrub evidence of violations, which are not merely a matter of nuclear material that President Obama has said cannot be concealed, but machinery, technology, etc. related to nuclear weapons. In any case, inspections regimes, even when far more comprehensive than this, often fail. If, during 1990–2003, the UN Security Council couldn’t enforce a genuinely intrusive regime of unfettered inspections, anywhere, anytime, without prior notice, backed by a Security Council-sanctioned threatened and sometimes actual use of force in the case of Saddam’s Iraq, what confidence can we have that it will be able to do so with Iran, which is not subject to any such apparatus of inspections and force? 

For the Congress to reject this deal would mean to block it “over the objection of the vast majority of the world”; “every nation in the world that has commented publicly, with the exception of the Israeli government, has expressed support”:
ZOA: The weasel words here are “commented publicly”. Many Sunni Arab states have been privately critical of Obama’s policy towards Iran for years. As cables exposed by Wikileaks have demonstrated, many Sunni Arab leaders have been privately expressing alarm for years that the U.S. has not acted to stop Iran’s nuclear program. Last week, following the conclusion of the Iran deal in Vienna, former Saudi intelligence chief and former ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar, reportedly suggested that “President Obama is knowingly making a bad deal, while President Bill Clinton had made a deal with North Korea with the best intentions and the best information he had. The new deal will ‘wreak havoc’ in the Middle East, which is already destabilized due to Iranian actions … [had President Clinton known otherwise] I am absolutely confident he would not have made that decision … [In the case of Iran] the strategic foreign policy analysis, the national intelligence information, and America’s allies in the region’s intelligence all predict not only the same outcome of the North Korean nuclear deal but worse –– with the billions of dollars that Iran will have access to.” President Obama has prevailed on the Gulf Arab states now to publicly cease their objections so he could plausibly claim in his speech this week that only Israel objects to the deal, but no-one believes that the long-standing opposition and apprehension over President Obama’s policy towards Iran expressed by Saudi, Egyptian, Bahraini, United Arab Emirates and Qatari leaders has actually changed. Moreover, this agreement is opposed by the American public –– by a rate of 2 to 1, according to a recent Quinnipiac poll; it also likely lacks a majority in the U.S. Congress. President Obama’s dishonest attempt to isolate Israel as a sole, spoiling objector maligns Israel, the prime target of an Iranian nuclear weapon, as a warmonger, given his effort to cast opponents as favoring war –– something that is now more likely as a result of this disastrous agreement.

Even before taking office, I made clear that Iran would not be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon on my watch, and it’s been my policy throughout my presidency to keep all options, including possible military options, on the table to achieve that objective”: 
ZOA: The weasel words here are “on my watch,” since Iran will not be a nuclear power by the time President Obama leaves office. However, President Obama continually committed himself to doing “everything, everything” to ensure Iran not obtain a nuclear weapon. Yet this deal permits Iran to maintain intact all the essential elements of its nuclear weapons program –– centrifuges, enriched uranium, underground nuclear sites, nuclear research and development, Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) research and development –– while discarding his own previously stated requirements for full, unfettered inspections of all suspected nuclear sites, Iranian accounting of past clandestine nuclear weapons activities, and maintaining all non-nuclear sanctions. Contrary, to his words in this speech, he has also discarded the military option which he claims is still there, saying in an interview that “the best way to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon is a verifiable, tough agreement. A military solution will not fix it, even if the United States participates. It would temporarily slow down an Iranian nuclear program, but it will not eliminate it.” Of course, this agreement also does no more than merely delay Iran getting a bomb –– assuming it actually complies.

“Just because Iranian hardliners chant ‘Death to America’ does not mean that that’s what all Iranians believe. In fact, it’s those… In fact, it’s those hardliners who are most comfortable with the status quo. It’s those hardliners chanting ‘Death to America’ who have been most opposed to the deal. They’re making common cause with the Republican Caucus”:
ZOA: This is completely untrue. The whole Iranian hierarchy, not just certain ‘hardline’ factions, including those who signed the deal, have called for ‘Death to America.’ President Rouhani himself attended the ‘Death to America’ rally that followed the signing of this nuclear deal. This should not be a surprise; as long ago as 1995, Rouhani, the phony ‘moderate’ said that “The beautiful cry of ‘Death to America’ unites our nation. In 2013, Rouhani, campaigning for the Iranian presidency, said. “Saying ‘Death to America’ is easy … We need to express ‘Death to America’ with action. Saying it, is easy.” It is with such phony moderates that President Obama has signed a deal giving Iran a pathway to nuclear weapons. While it is perfectly true that the Iranian public does not necessarily share its leaders’ fanatical hatred of America, Iran is not a democracy and moderate Iranians have no means to sway the regime in the direction of peace and non-aggression.