An Iranian View On The Nuclear Framework Agreement

How the nuclear deal looks from Iran, from the Ayatollah to the men and women on the street.

The US Congress is all over the Iran nuclear deal now, looking for leverage, looking for a voice, talking with John Kerry and the White House about how and whether it will all come down. Sanctions relief. The deal. Or maybe war if there is no deal, backers warn. What about on the other side of the looking glass? In Iran?  e saw cheering in the streets of Tehran when their negotiators came home. Hope for sanctions lifted. But there is long hostility too. Suspicion. Iranian strategic goals. This hour On Point: we turn to Tehran for the Iranian view of the big nuclear deal and what it may foretell.
-- Tom Ashbrook

Thomas Erdbrink, Tehran bureau chief for the New York Times. His new seven-part video series is "Our Man In Tehran." (@thomaserdbrink)

Sayyed Mohammad-Marandi, lecturer in North American Studies at Iran's Institue for North American and European Studies at the University of Tehran.

Haleh Esfandirari, director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Author of "Reconstructed Lives" and "My Prison, My Home."

New York Times: Iran’s Supreme Leader Says Sanctions Must Lift When Nuclear Deal Is Signed — "Iran’s supreme leader on Thursday challenged two of the United States’ bedrock principles in the nuclear negotiations, declaring that all economic sanctions would have to be lifted on the day any final agreement was signed and that military sites would be strictly off limits to foreign inspectors."

The Wall Street Journal: Iran Prepared to Extend Nuclear Deal Talks Over Red Lines — "Iran would extend talks for a final nuclear deal with world powers beyond a June 30 deadline if need be to satisfy red lines drawn this week by its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a senior Iranian official said."

The Economist: The view from Tehran -- "The enthusiasm for a new relationship with the West of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, will be harder to assess. The 75-year-old, who has led Iran since the death in 1989 of the Islamic Republic's more charismatic founder, Imam Ruhollah Khomeini, will not be rushing headlong into close ties with America. A man whose every speech can be read in at least two ways, Mr Khamenei is a master at hedging his bets."