Exocet Deck

Iran: The US-Iran deal "will be completely cancelled" over $100 billion in frozen assets Washington now wants tied to nuclear concessions. Tehran rejects the linkage, per Tasnim. The White House walked back its "largely negotiated" claim. Senior US officials now say the deal "could still fall apart." Trump went from "deal coming shortly" yesterday to "time is on our side" today, insisting the blockade "will remain in full force." Iran says lifting it is a precondition.

@AndrewKolvet Trump stated this morning that the blockade would remain until a deal was signed.

JUST IN - Was on a background media group call regarding details of the Iran peace deal. A senior administration official confirms the deal is around 90-95% ironed out. They made it explicitly clear that no American money would be transferred to Iran from the US in any way, shape, or form (no pallets of cash). What does Iran get? Possible sanctions relief. But the framework of the deal, per this official, mandates there will be no relief without Iranians making good on their end of the bargain first. “No dust, no dollars” meaning if Iranians meet their obligations as outlined in the deal to give up their enriched uranium, then sanctions would be partially relieved. If the Strait is opened without tolls or harassments of shipping vessels, the US will end the blockade and there would be additional relief, etc.: “If they don’t deliver on their commitments, then they don’t get anything. We’ve set up enforcement mechanisms.” The official also ripped thr notion this is anything like the JCPOA, which gave Iranians pallets of actual cash, allowed them to stockpile enriched uranium in the first place (which is partly how we got here) and contained no actual, practical enforcement mechanisms. What changed the Iranians thinking making them more amenable to a deal? Unclear if military or economic pressure was most persuasive. But the official confirms Iranians are talking in depth and in detail about getting rid of their enriched stockpiles and stopping enrichment in ways they haven’t been willing to discuss before. They have acknowledged that’s something they now have to give on. The broader overarching goal is to empower the moderate elements of Iran to overpower the influence of the hardliners. “We have high confidence that we have a good understanding of their command structure.” Moderates may not be in control yet, hardliners are still there, but they are “ascendant.” The official says returning back to the blockade or a military posture remains on the table if talks breakdown.

🚨After receiving a briefing from a Senior TRUMP Administration Official on the status of the Iran negotiations (someone in the know & not just speculating), I can tell you the following: -USA IS NOT GIVING IRANIANS MONEY FOR NOTHING. All speculation and propaganda to the contrary is false. Some hardline elements of Iran’s govt (IRGC) have pushed fake stories & propaganda to try to kill this negotiation. -Iran deal is NOT done (95%, but still haggling over some language). No deal being signed today. May be a few more days before this is done. -Iran will NOT get any money or sanctions relief up front. -Iran must turn over nuclear stockpile to get anything. USA position is that failure to meet deal commitments means Iran gets nothing. -Long term USA objective is preventing Iran from having nuclear weapon. -Initial deal point is to re-establish free flow of commerce by reopening Strait of Hormuz. Deal should have 2 phases: Step 1 - Open Strait of Hormuz. Give world economy breathing room. Iran agrees to give up enriched uranium. Step 2 - Get the nuclear material turned over. Only then can Iran get sanctions relief. Bottom line: goal is to make a deal that lowers costs for Americans, calms world energy markets, and guarantees that Iranians cannot have a nuclear weapon over the long term. We aren’t there yet. Iran takes forever to get you a response on even small things. But we are close although it still could be a few days. “If we get what we are demanding, this is going to be a historic deal,” SAO says. SAO sounds prepared to do no deal at all if all Iran will do is a “bad deal.” SAO admits deal could fall apart yet. But if a deal is reached, SAO expects very senior USA admin officials to take part in a signing ceremony of some sort. Iran has agreed in principle to the framework but there are still a couple points USA isn’t satisfied with. 95% done. But literally changing words sometimes requires days in Iran’s system. Haggling over language. But USA feels like we have a commitment on nuclear stockpile and on opening Strait of Hormuz. If IRAN doesn’t deliver on commitments, they get nothing. “Iran’s ability to project power is a lot more limited than it was two months ago,” SAO says. “Their industrial base for building ballistic missiles has been substantially destroyed.”

@DanTalks1 I don’t think we are any closer to “a deal” than we were on Feb 28th.

As a long time Trump supporter, when Iran and the NY times, release any information about the war, I uncritically believe everything they say. When the say Trump gave surrendered to Iran, and is giving them billions for nothing, I believe them.

Agreement might still be canceled. Iran confirmed that it will not back down from its red lines - Iran's Tasnim

You can tell the Iran deal is really good because Trump's advisors are online attacking Senators with Nikki Minaj references to demand they stop talking about it

MASSSIVE win

White House: A deal with Iran could take days. Axios.

@EricLDaugh @ConceptualJames Let him cook what? A shit sandwich?

🚨 JUST IN: President Trump announces his doubters are WRONG ON IRAN, "I DON'T MAKE BAD DEALS" LFG 🔥🔥 "He told me he couldn't talk about the deal saying, 'it's totally up to me!' And that if there is news, 'it's only going to be good news, I don't make bad deals.'" Let 47 cook!

@JackPosobiec Everyone kinda needs to know the details before supporting it, or not.

Are you in support of Trump's deal? I notice you didn't say that in your post

US officials are telling American media outlets Iran has agreed to hand over enriched uranium whilst Iranian officials are saying the opposite.

@JackPosobiec It’s not even close to being signed. Calm down.

The greatest foreign policy deal in our lifetime

@rich_goldberg Trump stated this morning that the blockade would remain in place until a deal is signed, which would appear to directly contradict point number one, above.

“No upfront pledge to unfreeze assets or lift sanctions” This makes a lot more sense than earlier reports of upfront oil sanctions relief.

@mboyle1 Have you ever heard of the concept of celebrating too soon?

If this is all true and all the other reports coming out are true, this is a massive massive massive victory for President Trump. Basically nobody — I repeat, nobody (from senators to world leaders and more with very rare exception) — thought President Trump could accomplish all of this. The few who did include the Prime Minister of Greece, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, the Prime Minister of Qatar, and a handful of others. Most thought Trump would just agree to a watered down version of the JCPOA (Obama Iran deal). By all indications, this emerging agreement is far better than that and actually accomplishes what Barack Obama could not: Trump seems to have stopped Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

Tehran has not agreed to give up its highly enriched uranium stockpile, a senior Iranian source told Reuters. The nuclear issue is not included in the preliminary agreement with Washington.

NEW: Iran State Tasnim reports: Iran has so far refused to agree to any commitments tied to its nuclear program.

A note on the possibility of Lebanon being “included” in the agreement between the U.S. and the Islamic regime: any deal that includes Lebanon at all is a strategic failure. Lebanon and Israel are both sovereign countries that aren’t involved in these negotiations. Furthermore, the U.S. is not involved in a conflict in Lebanon. Both the U.S. and the Islamic republic are in no position to be dictating to either Lebanon OR Israel what will happen with the fight against the regime’s terror proxy Hezbollah. To include Lebanon is to tacitly accept the Islamic regime’s colonialist behavior and regional interference.

Oh it is getting better: Arabic channels are talking the deal is included “verbal commitments” by the Iranian regime that won’t be formally written in the published deal. Black comedy! #FreeIran

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