No threat is greater than Iran with a nuclear weapon, says Obama

The US president admitted that some Iranian assets unfrozen through the nuclear deal will 'flow to activities we object to' but that this pales against the peril that would be left without an agreement.

US president Barack Obama delivered his speech at the American University’s school of international service in Washington, DC – the same venue in which president John F Kennedy delivered his famous 1963 speech on nuclear disarmament. Pete Marovich/BloombergShow less

NEW YORK // US president Barack Obama said on Wednesday that any benefit gained from sanctions relief which allows Iran to push its regional ambitions “pales” in comparison to the threat that Tehran would pose with a nuclear weapon.

In a speech urging Americans to support the Iran nuclear deal, Mr Obama said that only around US$56 billion (Dh205.7bn) in Iranian assets will be unfrozen through the deal, and that “our best analysts expect the bulk of this revenue to go into spending to improve the lives of the Iranian people”.

However, he admitted, “some of that money will flow to activities we object to”.

“We have no illusions about the Iranian government or the significance of the Revolutionary Guard and the Quds Force ... They tried to destabilise our Gulf partners,” Mr Obama said. “The truth is that Iran has always found a way to fund these efforts, and whatever benefit Iran may claim from sanctions relief pales in comparison to the danger it could pose with a nuclear weapon.”

Washington’s traditional Gulf Arab allies publicly support the deal, and generally trust the terms with regard to limiting Iran’s nuclear programme. However, they remain deeply concerned that the lifting of sanctions and the international arms embargo will provide a windfall for Iran’s military and allow it to more forcefully project power through its Arab allies and proxies.

Mr Obama appeared to address these concerns in his remarks, saying that Tehran’s key Arab allies, Syrian president Bashar Al Assad and Hizbollah, are facing serious setbacks on the battlefield in Syria, despite the fact that it has spent billions on supporting them, while also fighting ISIL in Iraq.

“So, contrary to the alarmists who claim Iran is on the brink of taking over the Middle East, or even the world, Iran will remain a regional power with its own set of challenges,” he said.

“But if we are serious about confronting Iran’s destabilising activities, it is hard to imagine a worse approach than blocking this deal,” he added.

“Instead, we need to check the behaviour that we are concerned about directly, by helping our allies in the region strengthen their own capabilities to counter a cyber attack or a ballistic missile, by improving the interdiction of weapons’ shipments that go to groups like Hizbollah, [and] by training our allies’ special forces so they can more effectively respond to situations like Yemen.”

Also on Wednesday, the US’ top financial counter-terrorism official said that Washington will continue to target Iran’s support for allied militant groups and proxies even as the nuclear accord lifts international sanctions.

It will take at least six to nine months for Iran to fulfil the deal’s conditions and for sanctions to begin to be lifted, and if it violates the agreement then US sanctions could be reimposed in “days”, Adam Szubin, the US treasury’s acting under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence told a senate committee.

Mr Obama was speaking at American University in Washington as part of his administration’s all-out lobbying push to garner public support for the accord, as well as support among Arab allies, and enough Democratic votes in Congress to override an expected vote against the deal.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanhayu opposes the deal and addressed thousands of American Jews in a webcast on Tuesday, arguing that they should oppose the deal. The powerful pro-Israel lobby group, Aipac, and a new group associated with it, are spending a reported $40 million in lobbying and advertisements to convince voters – mostly Jewish-Americans in Democratic districts – to oppose the deal.

While many Democratic lawmakers have come out in support of the deal to limit Iran’s nuclear enrichment capabilities in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions – including three formerly undecided prominent senators on Monday – opponents hope to persuade voters to lobby against the deal directly to their representatives during the congressional break this month.

Congress has until mid-September to debate the agreement, and then will likely take a vote of disapproval that would kill the deal. Mr Obama has promised to veto any such legislation, and observers doubt that enough Democrats can be convinced to muster a two-thirds supermajority to override the veto.

Mr Obama said that if such a supermajority could be mustered, then the diplomatic fallout for the US would be immense and that sanctions would unravel regardless, while Iran would accelerate its path to a bomb without the constraint of inspections or transparency. A military confrontation – which would not destroy Iran’s nuclear know-how – would become inevitable, he said.

“So let’s not mince words. The choice we face is ultimately between diplomacy or some form of war,” Mr Obama said. “Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not three months from now, but soon.”

During his remarks, Mr Obama sought to paint critics of the nuclear accord as the same people who pushed for the catastrophic US invasion of Iraq in 2003, a war that Mr Obama opposed and that became overwhelmingly unpopular with the US public.

“If we’ve learnt anything from the last decade, it’s that wars in general and wars in the Middle East in particular are anything but simple,” he said. “The only certainty in war is human suffering, uncertain costs, unintended consequences.”

During his first election in 2008, Mr Obama ran on a promise to end US wars in the Middle East, alongside trying to forge a diplomatic solution to the dispute over Iran’s nuclear activities.

“When I ran for president eight years ago as a candidate who had opposed the decision to go to war in Iraq, I said that America didn’t just have to end that war,” Mr Obama said. “We had to end the mindset that got us there in the first place.”

* With additional reporting by Reuters