News Analysis: U.S., Iran could miss nuke deal deadline again: U.S. experts

The U.S. and Iran missed Tuesday 's deadline to hammer out an agreement on the Islamic Republic's controversial nuclear program, but some experts said they would not be surprised if the new deadline is postponed again.

Iran and the P5+1, or five UN Security Council permanent members including Britain, China, France, Russia and the U.S., plus Germany, have in recent months been engaged in intensive talks over Iran's nuclear program. After missing the June 30 deadline for a final deal, the two sides agreed Tuesday to extend the deadline to July 7.

The U.S. Congress has set July 9 as its deadline in the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, when the administration of President Barack Obama must deliver a copy of the deal to U.S. lawmakers, who will have a month to examine it.

Iran is still at odds with the U.S. over a few crucial issues, which need to be ironed out before any deal is made. The U.S.-led Western powers suspect Tehran's nuclear program is intended to build nuclear weapons, though Tehran maintains the program is peaceful.

Obama said Tuesday that he would walk away from a bad deal, pointing specifically to ongoing disagreements over inspections of Iran's nuclear sites, saying that without assurances that a way toward building nuclear weapons is blocked, there will be no deal. He added that inspections would need to be vigorous and targeted and that any agreement cannot simply depend on declarations from Iran that it is sticking to the deal.

David Pollock, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Xinhua the main sticking points are the issue of inspections and access, as well as whether inspectors will have full access to Iran's facilities on the ground or whether there will be restrictions.

For Iran, the major issue is sanctions, including the timing and schedule of sanctions relief for Iran and whether that would be conditional, gradual, partial or immediate, Pollock said.

All the technical details, such as centrifuges, are still under discussion, which means much complicated work ahead, Pollock said.

Even if a deal is reached in time, there is still a risk that it could be scrapped, as it remains unknown whether Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will accept it. Indeed, there have been cases where negotiators reached an agreement but then took it back to Tehran only to see it vetoed by the Ayatollah, Pollock said.

For Tehran, it is imperative to get rid of the sanctions that have wrecked its economy and caused its currency to plummet, but it remains unknown when and just how many sanctions will be lifted if a deal is cut.

The U.S. has said sanctions would be lifted over time in parallel with the compliance of provisions in the agreement. But it remains unclear how long that would take.

"It might be six months, it might be a year, it might be more. It depends, it seems, on how long it's going to take Iran to comply and satisfy the IAEA and others that it's actually carrying out the terms of the agreement," Pollock said.

There's also the question of a so-called signing bonus Tehran has a lot of money around the world that has been frozen by sanctions, and it's been allowed to access some to it. But it's possible, although not sure, that all of those accounts will immediately be unfrozen after a deal is signed, some experts noted.

Alireza Nader, senior policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, told Xinhua that Iran is concerned about the timing of sanctions relief and is sensitive about opening its military sites to international inspections. These are both thorny issues, and given their sensitive nature, it is no surprise that the deadline for the negotiations will most likely be extended.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to blast the deal, saying he wants an agreement in which Iran dismantles its entire program. That is a demand to which Iran is unlikely to agree, Nader said.

Former Central Intelligence Agency Director Michael Hayden blasted the Obama administration on Fox News Sunday for how it has handled the talks so far. "I would actually fear that the Iranians have the upper hand right now...I actually fear we have painted ourselves into a corner where we believe that any deal is better than no deal at the present time," he said.

Hayden said the deal, as it looks now, does not do enough to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons in the future.

Critics in the U.S., many of them Republicans, said Obama seems most interested in cutting a deal just for the sake of doing so, whether the agreement benefits the U.S. or not.

James Phillips, a Middle East expert at the Heritage Foundation, told Xinhua that, in his opinion, Iran is trying to use the deadline as bargaining leverage against Washington.

He added that he does not see a deal getting done by the July 9 deadline. "I think it will be very difficult to get a nuclear deal acceptable to the U.S. congress by July 9. I would not be surprised if the deadline was postponed again," he said. Endite