White House hopes to meet Nov. 24 deadline for Iranian nuclear deal

MUSCAT, Oman – The Obama administration is facing its last best chance to curb Iran’s nuclear program – not just to meet an end-of-the-month deadline for a deal, but also to seal one before skeptical Republicans who will control Congress next year are able to scuttle it.

Years of negotiations to limit Tehran’s nuclear production entered the final stretch Sunday as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and European Union senior adviser Catherine Ashton in Oman’s capital. With no immediate agreement in sight, officials said the discussions were expected to continue into today.

The stakes are high as the Nov. 24 deadline approaches. A deal could quell Mideast fears about Iran’s ability to build a nuclear bomb and help revive the Islamic Republic’s economy.

It also would deliver a foreign policy triumph for the White House, which is being hammered by prominent Republican senators over its handling of the civil war in Syria and the growth of the Islamic State militancy in Iraq. Those same critics seek to put the brakes on U.S.-Iranian bartering, if not shut it down completely, once they seize the majority on Jan. 3.

The Obama administration “needs to understand that this Iranian regime cares more about trying to weaken America and push us out of the Middle East than cooperating with us,” Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona, the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said in a statement last week.

President Barack Obama told CBS’ “Face The Nation” that his administration’s “unprecedented sanctions” on Iran are what forced Tehran to the negotiating table. “Our No. 1 priority with respect to Iran is making sure they don’t get a nuclear weapon,” he said.

But Obama also cited “a big gap” between Iran and world powers as they try for a final agreement. “We may not be able to get there,” he said in the interview broadcast Sunday.

Over the past year, congressional Republicans have made little secret of their skepticism of Obama’s outreach to Tehran. They say it has alienated Israel and kept the U.S. from maintaining a hard line on a number of foreign policy fronts, including Iran’s detention of three Americans.

That skepticism is born mostly of concerns that Iran secretly will enrich enough uranium to build nuclear weapons, even after a deal is reached. For years, Iran hid some of its nuclear facilities and blocked inspectors’ access at others, raising widespread alarms about its intentions.

Penalties imposed by the U.S., EU and the U.N. Security Council aimed to punish Tehran for its covert nuclear program.

Iran has maintained that its nuclear activities are purely peaceful and necessary to fuel medical and energy demands.

Last week, Kerry, a former Senate Foreign Relations committee chairman, rejected suggestions that a GOP-controlled Congress would be able to change course on negotiations with Iran. He also noted that any Senate move would need overwhelming support to be approved. “As we have learned in the last few years, the minority has enormous power to stop things from happening,” he said.

He also has said none of the world powers has an appetite for extending the talks beyond the Nov. 24 deadline, although that remains a remote possibility if an agreement appears close.

If a deal is struck before year’s end, U.S. lawmakers may have limited ability to undo it. Experts believe most of the U.S. penalties against Iran’s financial and oil markets can be suspended, if not lifted entirely, by presidential authority.

Beyond Jan. 3, however, and without an agreement in place, Congress could try to issue new sanctions without giving Obama that authority to suspend or lift them.