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Q:    Can you tell me what the administration’s position is on whether or not sanctions would be lifted immediately or whether or not they would be phased in over a period of time as the Iranians demonstrate that they’re complying with the agreement? 

MR. EARNEST:  Jon, we’ve been resolute about this -- that any sort of agreement that we reach with Iran will be Iran making specific commitments to shut down every pathway they have to a nuclear weapon.  And there are a lot of details about those commitments included in the parameters document that we released a few weeks ago.  These are steps they would take to overhaul the plutonium reactor at Arak and a whole series of other steps that would shut down every pathway they have to a nuclear weapon.  We would also insist on Iran’s cooperation with, as I mentioned earlier, the most intrusive set of inspections that have been imposed on a country’s nuclear program.  And in exchange, the United States and the broader international community would take steps to phase in sanctions relief in exchange for Iran taking these steps that would be delineated in the agreement.
 
It would not make sense, just as a negotiating posture, for Iran to sign at the bottom on the dotted line, and then for all the sanctions relief to be given to them.  That would -- I mean, it would largely remove the incentive for their compliance of the agreement.  And given their rather shorted history when it comes to candor about their nuclear program, that would be an unwise move.  And that’s why we believe that the United States will work with the international community to structure in phased sanctions relief in exchange for specific steps that Iran will take to shut down every pathway they have to a nuclear weapon.
 
Q:    Let me be sure I understand you.  I think you have just said that there will be no deal to lift sanctions immediately; that the only deal that the United States would be willing to sign on would be one that lifts sanctions over time in return for Iranian compliance to the deal.
 
MR. EARNEST:  This is consistent with what the President has said before and it’s what I’ve said before, which is that the best way for us to structure an agreement, and the kind of agreement that we would sign on to is one in which in exchange for Iran making very serious commitments and following through and taking very serious steps to shut down every pathway they have to a nuclear weapon, in exchange the United States and the international community would begin phasing in some sanctions relief.
 
What the President has also said, that’s also a critical part of our position, is we believed that the phased sanctions relief also makes sense because we want to leave the underlying architecture of our sanctions in place so that if we do detect that Iran is not implementing their end of the deal, that sanctions can be immediately snapped back into place.  And that’s the other virtue of this phased-in sanctions relief strategy, is it allows us to keep the underlying architecture in place, such that if Iran doesn’t live up to its end of the deal or we detect through these inspections that they aren’t living up to the deal, that we can move quickly at the stroke of a pen to snap those sanctions back into place.

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Q:    You just repeated your call for the ability to snap back sanctions, and yet there’s a lot of skepticism that sanctions could be structured so that particularly sanctions imposed by the U.N. and other nations could be snapped back, as it were, at a moment’s notice if a violation were found.  What makes you so sure that that is possible?
 
MR. EARNEST:  Well, let me acknowledge on the front end that, yes, what you described is complicated.  And that’s why our negotiators, even after establishing a good political framework with the Iranians and our P5+1 partners, have left themselves two and a half months to negotiate the details and make sure that the details for the implementation of that political agreement reflect the commitments that were made in the context of that political agreement.  So I’ll acknowledge on the front end that it’s complicated. 
 
The second thing is that the United States and our international partners are committed to the strategy that -- what I described before about the need to preserve the sanctions architecture so that if we detect that Iran is deviating from some of the commitments that they had previously made, that we want to have the ability -- and when I say “we”, I mean not just the United States, I mean the international community wants to have the ability to snap those sanctions back in place.
 
Now, the mechanics for doing that, again, are admittedly complicated but it’s something that they’re working on.  And obviously the Iranians who are sitting on the other side of the table, who are making very serious commitments about their nuclear program in exchange for the sanctions relief are understandably interested in how that situation gets resolved and how it gets written into the agreement.  So there’s a lot to work through here, but the strategy that we’re pursuing is one that makes a lot of sense.  It’s the best way for us to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and it is a strategy that the international community signed on to.

Q:    First, I just wanted to look back on sanctions really quickly.  There’s some vagueness in both, I think, the President’s comments last week and yours.  And so what I want to --
 
MR. EARNEST:  -- try to tighten them.
 
Q:    Yes.  What I wanted to figure out specifically is whether the U.S. was willing to roll back any sanctions on Iran before it fully reduces its stockpile of enriched uranium and disassembles its centrifuges.  Those are two things that were in the factsheet.  And I think the question is whether we’d start to roll back before that had been fully completed.
 
MR. EARNEST:  What I will say, Justin -- the reason I can’t be specific on this is that we’re not going to negotiate the agreement from here.  What we have indicated --
 
Q:    So it’s possible?
 
MR. EARNEST:  Well, what we have indicated is that Iran has to take steps to shut down every pathway they have to a nuclear weapon before the United States is going to consider any sanctions relief.  And then once we start to see Iran take important, tangible steps towards shutting down every pathway they have to a nuclear weapon and cooperating with intrusive inspections, then we can begin the talk -- or begin the work of starting to phase in sanctions relief. 
 
But that sanctions relief will only commence once Iran has begun taking the tangible, measurable, verifiable steps that they commit to as it relates to curtailing and limiting their nuclear program.
 
Q:    Begun but not necessarily completed, right?  That’s, I think, where the question is.
 
MR. EARNEST:  Well, again, I think that the question lies around how it’s going to be structured -- what are the steps that Iran will take in exchange for what kind of sanctions relief.  Because we know and we’ve been clear that Iran is not going to get all the sanctions relief upfront.  So the question is, what steps do they have to start taking in order to start receiving some of the sanctions relief.  And that is actually the crux of the negotiations that will take place over the next couple of months here.

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