US racing against time, Congress on Iran nuke deal

MUSCAT, Oman — The Obama administration could be facing its last best chance to curb Iran’s nuclear program — not just to meet an end-of-the-month deadline for a deal but also to seal one before skeptical Republicans, who will control Congress next year, are able to scuttle it.

Years of negotiations to limit Tehran’s nuclear production entered the final stretch Sunday as Secretary of State John Kerry met with Foreign Minister Javad Zarif of Iran and European Union senior adviser Catherine Ashton in Oman’s capital. With no immediate agreement in sight, officials said, the discussions were expected to continue into Monday.

The stakes are high as the Nov. 24 deadline approaches. A deal could quell Mideast fears about Iran’s ability to build a nuclear bomb and could help revive the Islamic Republic’s economy.

It also would deliver a foreign policy triumph for the White House, which is being hammered by prominent Republican senators over its handling of the civil war in Syria and the growth of the Islamic State militancy in Iraq.

Those same critics seek to put the brakes on US-Iranian bartering, if not shut it down completely, once they seize the majority on Jan. 3.

The Obama administration ‘‘needs to understand that this Iranian regime cares more about trying to weaken America and push us out of the Middle East than cooperating with us,’’ Senators John McCain of Arizona, the incoming chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said in a statement last week.

President Obama told CBS’s ‘‘Face The Nation’’ that his administration’s ‘‘unprecedented sanctions’’ on Iran are what forced Tehran to the negotiating table. ‘‘Our number-one priority with respect to Iran is making sure they don’t get a nuclear weapon,’’ he said.

But Obama also cited ‘‘a big gap’’ between Iran and world powers as they try for a final agreement. ‘‘We may not be able to get there,’’ he said in the interview broadcast Sunday.

Over the past year, congressional Republicans have made little secret of their skepticism of Obama’s outreach to Tehran. They say it has alienated Israel and kept the United States from maintaining a hard line on a number of foreign policy fronts, including Iran’s detention of three Americans.

That skepticism is borne mostly of concerns that Iran secretly will enrich enough uranium to build nuclear weapons, even after a deal is reached. For years, Iran hid some of its nuclear facilities and blocked inspectors’ access at others, raising alarms about its intentions.

Iran has maintained that its nuclear activities are purely peaceful and necessary to fuel medical and energy demands.

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