Washington, July 15
As the Obama
administration moved to sell the historic Iran nuclear deal, National
Security Advisor Susan Rice warned that countries like India and Japan
who paid an economic price of US sanctions may not support them again if
it was scuttled.
"Countries like Japan and India that have paid
an economic price to implement these sanctions would no longer feel the
obligation to do so, if a hostile Republican Congress failed to approve
the deal," Rice told PBS Tuesday.
She also made clear that
President Barack Obama's threat to "veto any legislation that prevents
the successful implementation of this deal" was not open "to discussion
or negotiation".
"No, seriously, no, because we have negotiated a
deal that is good for the United States, it's good for Israel, it's
good for world peace and security.
"And if the United States were
the country, the sole country out of the international community to
blow up a deal," Rice said, "the sanctions regime that we have worked so
hard to maintain will fall apart, because the rest of the world will
say, what is the point?".
"Countries like Japan and India that
have paid an economic price to implement these sanctions would no longer
feel the obligation to do so," she said.
"Iran would say, look,
we signed up for the deal, we're ready to do our part, but now, since
there's no prospect of sanctions relief, we're going to pursue our
nuclear programme unconstrained."
"That would be a lose-lose
situation. So it would be very unfortunate if the United States were
the one to abrogate and therefore blow up a very good deal," Rice said.
Earlier, White House also cited India's example in making a similar argument in support of the deal.
"If
there was a decision taken by Congress to kill this deal, there is not
a scenario that anybody could see whereby the rest of the world would
sign up for additional sanctions," a senior administration official said
in background briefing call.
"The world has had to make
significant sacrifices, in some cases, to reduce their purchase of
Iranian oil," he said. "They did that in support of this negotiation."
"So
when we went around to Europe, to China, to India, to South Korea, to
Japan, and got them and others to reduce their purchases of Iranian oil,
the express purpose of that effort was to get this deal."
"So
if, having gotten this deal, we then kill it, it is hard to see why
those countries would then go back along with additional sanctions," the
official said.
Meanwhile, the administration has begun a
lobbying campaign on the Capitol Hill to shore up support for the deal
to which a section of the Democrats is also opposed.
A series of
public and private, classified briefings began Wednesday with Vice
President Joe Biden, slated to discuss the agreement with House
Democrats at the request of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at [email protected])
