White House Officials Plot Ways to Pressure Lawmakers Into Supporting Iran Deal
By Adam Kredo. White House officials on Monday held a private conference call with liberal organizations to discuss ways of pressuring Democrats and other lawmakers on Capitol Hill into supporting a nuclear deal with Iran that is expected to be finalized in the coming days, according to an audio recording of that call obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The call, in which there were more than 100 participants, was organized by the liberal pro-Iran group Ploughshares Fund, which has spent millions of dollars to slant Iran-related coverage and protect the Obama administration’s diplomatic efforts.
The White House officials described a nuclear deal with Iran as President Obama’s “signature foreign policy accomplishment” and urged liberal groups to launch an all-out lobbying campaign to pressure lawmakers, especially Democrats, to back the deal.
Progressive leaders on the call told participants to prepare for a “real war” and repeatedly declared that “the other side will go crazy” in the coming days. The call also included the anti-war group MoveOn.org.
“This has really been on the front burner from a foreign perspective, although not in the public eye necessarily, since the very beginning,” Matt Nosanchuk, an official in the White House Office of Public Engagement, told participants. “This is not an issue of the day, this is really an issue of the presidency.” (Read more from “White House Officials Plot Ways to Pressure Lawmakers Into Supporting Iran Deal” HERE)
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Iranian Official: US Will Remain Our Enemy Despite Emerging Nuclear Deal
By JPost Staff. A senior Iranian military official said Sunday that despite the emerging nuclear deal between Iran and the US-led P5+1 group of world powers, America will remain Tehran’s enemy.
Iranian Ground Force Commander Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Pourdastan said that even if a nuclear deal comes to fruition in Vienna, where Iranian and western negotiators are currently trying to reach an agreement by a Tuesday deadline, Tehran and Washington will not become friends.
“The US might arrive at some agreements with us within the framework of the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany), but we should never hold a positive view over the enemy,” Iran’s Fars News Agency quoted Pourdastan as saying.
“Our enmity with them is over the principles and is rooted because we are after the truth and nations’ freedom, but they seek exploiting nations and putting them in chains,” he explained further.
Pourdastan’s comments came as differences still remained between the two sides over the country’s disputed nuclear program ahead of Tuesday’s deadline for a final agreement to end a 12-year-old dispute. (Read more from “Iranian Official: US Will Remain Our Enemy Despite Emerging Nuclear Deal” HERE)
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