Iran deal best chance for peace in Middle East: Obama

The Iranian nuclear deal reached by the US and its international partners is the best chance for peace in the Middle East, President Barack Obama said today as he strongly refuted critics to the deal.
"With this deal, we have the possibility of peacefully resolving a major threat to regional and international security. Without a deal, we risk even more war in the Middle East and other countries in the region would feel compelled to pursue their own nuclear programs, threatening a nuclear arms race in the most volatile region in the world," Obama said at a White House news conference.

"With this deal, we cut off every single one of Iran's pathways to a nuclear program, a nuclear weapons program," he said adding that Iran's nuclear program will be under severe limits for many years.
"Without a deal, those pathways remain open. There would be no limits to Iran's nuclear program, and Iran could move closer to a nuclear bomb. With this deal, we gain unprecedented around the clock monitoring of Iran's key nuclear facilities in the most comprehensive and intrusive inspection and verification regime ever negotiated," he said.
"Without a deal, those inspections go away and we'd lose the ability to closely monitor Iran's program and detect any covert nuclear weapons program. With this deal, if Iran violates its commitments, there will be real consequences, nuclear-related sanctions that have helped to cripple the Iranian economy will snap back into place," he warned.

Even with this deal, the US will continue to have profound differences with Iran: its support of terrorism, its use of proxies to destabilise parts of the Middle East.

"Therefore, the multilateral arms embargo on Iran will remain in place for an additional five years, and restrictions on ballistic missile technology will remain for eight years," Obama said.
In addition, the US will maintain its own sanctions related to Iran's support for terrorism, its ballistic missile program, and its human rights violations.
"We will continue our unprecedented security cooperation with Israel and continue to deepen our partnerships with the Gulf states," he said.

Obama said this nuclear deal meets the national security interests of the US and its allies.
It prevents the most serious threat, Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, which would only make the other problems that Iran may cause even worse, he noted.