Senior US official: Far-reaching Iran deal would dismantle nuclear program, bring Israel and Gulf allies on board

A senior US administration official sought to ease concerns over an emerging agreement with Iran, saying Israeli officials were expected to be more comfortable with the deal once they saw its full terms and understood that Tehran would have to deliver on its commitments before receiving benefits.

“We feel like when they see the full terms of the deal, and when they appreciate that fundamentally, there has to be delivery from the Iranians before we deliver any of the benefits, that they’re comfortable with that,” the official told US media.

“I think they certainly have expressed some skepticism of the misreported details that we’ve seen out there,” the official added, “but we feel confident that the deal that we’re actually going to strike, assuming we get there, is going to be a deal that everybody in the region can be comfortable with.”

The official said the agreement would first reopen the Strait of Hormuz and lift the blockade, while also leading to the dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program and the removal of enriched material.

“What it does is, first, it reopens the straits and lifts the blockade,” the official said. “Number two, it leads to the dismantling of the Iranian nuclear program. Number three, it leads to the United States getting the enriched material.”

The official said the agreement provided for the material to be destroyed inside Iran before being taken out of the country.

“We provide in the agreement that this material would be destroyed on site, and then taken out of the country,” the official said.

He added that the deal was intended to produce “a long-term peace in the region,” including an end to Iranian funding of violence and respect for Iran’s territorial sovereignty.

“That would mean, of course, that the Iranians are no longer funding violence in the region, but it also means that everyone is respecting the territorial sovereignty of Iran,” the official said.

The official described the agreement as part of a broader regional framework, saying Washington expected Israel and its Gulf partners to ultimately support it.

“The regional peace agreement is broad, I mean it includes Lebanon, it includes Iran, it includes the Gulf Coast countries and includes Israel, and we feel quite confident that all of our allies, the Israelis and the Gulf Coast coalition, will get on board,” the official said.

The official said the agreement would also include an inspection regime designed to ensure that Iran’s commitments were enforceable over time.

“It has an inspection regime that makes sure that this is a long-term commitment and that it’s long-term enforceable,” he said. “That’s what really the United States gets out of the agreement.”

In return, the official said Iran would receive relief from economic pressure only if it complied with the deal.

“What Iran gets out of the agreement is that if they comply, they’re going to be relieved of a lot of the economic pressures that they’ve been under for many, many years,” he said.

Asked about the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program, the official said the technical details would have to be worked out in follow-up negotiations.

“It’s going to take some technical process to figure that out,” he said. “For example, the Iranians commit to destroying and removing the enriched material, but how do you do that? It’s going to take a little bit of time to figure it out.”

“This is very combustible stuff, very volatile stuff,” he added. “We’re not just going to go down there with a backhoe and a guy with a backpack and start taking it out.”

The official said the commitments included dismantling Iran’s nuclear weapons program and decommissioning its nuclear sites.

“There’s also a commitment to dismantling the nuclear weapons program. There’s a commitment to decommissioning the nuclear sites, and of course we’re going to figure out how to do that in the technical negotiations that will follow,” he said.