Obama Blasts Attempts to Derail Iran Nuclear Deal

Says Partisan Criticism 'Needs to Stop'

In comments over the weekend, President Obama defending the ongoing Iran nuclear negotiations, saying he doesn’t “understand why it is everybody’s working so hard to anticipate failure.”

Obama was critical of the “partisanship” in criticisms of his policy, singling out Sen. John McCain (R – AZ) for his denunciations of Secretary of State John Kerry, saying they “crossed all boundaries.”

McCain had accused Kerry of being “delusional” about the deal, with criticisms that centers on the lack of an actually text for the framework, and speculation over whether Kerry’s version of the deal or Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s was closer to the reality.

The US and Iran reached a sideline deal on the framework, keeping much of it a secret so they could each spin the deal as they wished. The two versions are so far afield of one another, however, that what the deal actually is remains unclear.

Obama seemed primarily to be mad that McCain was taking Khamenei’s word over Kerry’s saying that “needs to stop.” This could be resolved pretty quickly if the text of the deal itself were released, but that appears not to be considered.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.