After Iran rejects US deadline, US claims there never was a deadline!

For months, the State Department has been heralding two deadlines for Iran negotiations: A political agreement by the end of March and a technical agreement by the end of June. Here are three examples where they used that language.

From the November 24 State Department press briefing:

QUESTION: Why is that wrong? Why shouldn’t they pass more sanctions? Why shouldn’t the President not veto them? And why shouldn’t – why doesn’t that send you to into the negotiating room over the next seven months with a stronger hand?

MR. RATHKE: Well, the Secretary, when he was in the Senate, played a central role in putting into place the sanctions regime that exists now and that – as I discussed with Lara – that has been essential to bringing Iran to the negotiating table. Now the factors that went into the JPOA that you outlined, those remain the case. We are committed to the negotiating process not for negotiation’s sake but because we believe progress is being made. And that’s why we have on the one hand the four-month deadline for a political agreement and then three months after that to do the technical work. The Secretary outlined all that in detail. And our reasoning about the efficacy of additional sanctions during that period also remains the same as it has been throughout the period when the JPOA has been in effect.

January 21 briefing:

MS. PSAKI: Sure. So Deputy Secretary Blinken spoke about this a little bit during his hearing, but let me reiterate some of the points he made. So on the deadline question, which I know you’ve had in the past, the P5+1, coordinated by the EU and Iran, agreed to extend the nuclear talks until March 31st to reach a political agreement, and then June 30th to reach all of the technical details. So a political agreement means, in our view, a political understanding on the elements of a deal so that we can use the remaining months to work out the technical details by June 30th.

Press briefing January 28th:

Q Okay, and just one other topic. On the question of Iran, of course the President made it clear he would veto the sanctions bill if Congress did it -- saying it would interfere with negotiations. Now Senator Menendez and nine other Democrats who all support that bill have conceded to the White House that they will not support a sanctions bill until March 24th; that’s the date that you’re supposed to have a framework agreement. So does the veto threat go away after March 24th? Because they say they want to vote on it right after March 24th if Iran has not agreed to that framework agreement. So will you -- they’ve now made a big concession to the White House that they’re going to hold off. Will that veto threat be dropped on March 24th if there is no framework agreement?

MR. SCHULTZ: Jon, the President does indeed appreciate the recognition that our negotiators need continued time and space to pursue this diplomatic option. We welcome the commitment by Senator Menendez and others to vote against, as you point out, the sanctions bill on the floor right now. We’re going to continue to work closely with Congress on this.

Q But my question is, does the veto threat go away on March 24th if there is no agreement, if the Iranians have not agreed to a broad framework?

MR. SCHULTZ: Jon, the President has made clear the importance of the end-of-March deadline in our own pursuit of a political framework there. So we’re going to certainly engage Congress at that point, just like we have been thus far. And if we determine that negotiations have failed, we have always said we’ll be the first ones to move for sanctions; I think the President has said that. We’ll take a day or two, but that’s a determination we’re going to make based on the progress of the negotiations at that point.

On Sunday, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei rejected the entire idea of a political agreement at all as well as deadlines:

I do not favor remarks that we should agree on some principles and later on details. I dislike it when they say that there should be a deal on general principles at one stage and then we can talk about details. Given our experience with the other side, they will use this as a tool for repeatedly making excuses regarding details. If they want a deal, they should cover both generalities and details in a single session, instead of leaving details for later and separating generalities which are vague and leave room for different interpretations. This is not logical.

And within a single day, the State Department backpedaled on the idea of a political deadline:

QUESTION: So just to understand that, the extension that if you had an agreement on some sort of – so essentially, you’re not thinking about potentially extending the March deadline, but if you have something by March and the technical details go on, then the June one could be a softer deadline. Is that the way to read it?

MS. PSAKI: No. I think we see the end of June as the – that’s when technically the JPOA is extended until. Our goal remains coming to a political framework by the end of March. And I think what you heard from the Secretary and the President is that the longer time goes on, it doesn’t become easier. And so that remains our goal and our focus, and there are – is a lot of technical work that would need to be done with annexes, et cetera. So that would be what that time would be spent on.

QUESTION: Right. I just asked – I think the President said you couldn’t do it without a basis for an extension, along the lines of you need a reason for it.

MS. PSAKI: Sure.

QUESTION: But that seems to me that the March is a fixed deadline; there can’t be an extension since the framework is supposed to be the basis, right? You can’t have a basis of a basis, right?

MS. PSAKI: Well, there’s no – but the JPOA is technically extended through the end of June.

QUESTION: Right.

MS. PSAKI: That doesn’t change the fact that the Secretary and many other senior officials have been very vocal about our goal of achieving a political framework by the end of March, because we need the time to go through the annexes and the very difficult technical details.

QUESTION: So that – so what you just said seems to imply to me that that’s not a fixed hard deadline, the end of March, because that’s not actually part of the JPOA extension. Is that right?

MS. PSAKI: No. What I was conveying is --

QUESTION: It’s a goal, but --

MS. PSAKI: Yes. It is a goal, it remains a goal. But – and the Secretary has been very vocal about that. So I don’t – we’ve never called it a deadline; we’ve called it a goal of when we want to achieve the political framework.

QUESTION: Okay. So if it’s March 31st – sorry to beat on this point -- If it’s March 31st and you still think there’s scope to reach a deal by the end of June but you don’t have all of the details of your framework or basis or principles agreed upon, that doesn’t mean the talks are over. You can go into April to get a framework.

MS. PSAKI: I think we’ll have to discuss that and determine at that point in time. We’re not there yet.

Deadlines? Who ever said anything about deadlines? They were just "goals!"

What a great example of "diplomacy in action:"

It would be funny if the end result wouldn't be the US giving Iran all the time in the world to continue to build its nuclear weapons program as well as the ballistic missile capability to deliver those nuclear weapons.

(h/t OC)