Iran was wallowing in anti-American sentiment on Friday, only a day after a pending nuclear-limits deal was announced, Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, told
Newsmax TV.
There also are disturbing differences in what the United States is saying has been agreed to and what the Iranian government is touting, Rubin said.
"Today, across Iran, in Tehran and cities from side to side … there were chants of 'death to America,' " Rubin on Friday told Rick Ungar and Betsy McCaughey, guest hosts of "The Steve Malzberg Show."
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"The president of Iran got on television … and said that his understanding is sanctions are going to be lifted immediately as soon as the final agreement is struck," Rubin said.
"But President [Barack] Obama had said that it would be a phased lifting of sanctions, so already we see quite a discrepancy there."
The amount of nuclear material Iran can maintain is also in dispute.
"President Obama [was] saying that Iran would have no plutonium left after reconfiguring the nuclear plant, the heavy-water reactor at Arak," Rubin said.
"The Iranians today were saying, no, plutonium [is] only going to be reduced. The difference between reduced and eliminated is the difference between a nuclear bomb and none."
The framework for a deal that will set limits on Iran's nuclear program was announced on Thursday, after 18 months of negotiations among Iran, the United States and other world powers.
But Rubin – a lecturer at the Naval Post Graduate School and author of
"Dancing with the Devil: The Perils of Engaging Rogue Regimes," published by Encounter – said that in no way will the tentative deal lead to a kinder, gentler Iran.
"Make no mistake, they will, no matter what, continue to expand their terrorism around the globe," Rubin said.
"In November, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps defined Iran's strategic boundaries as eastern Mediterranean and the Gulf of Aden – and [from] what we see in Yemen in recent weeks, that wasn't mere empty rhetoric.
"At the same time, they're full speed ahead on their ballistic missile program. Unfortunately, any money we give them is only going to be pumped disproportionately into those programs."
Rubin notes that the four pages being circulated by the State Department, which outline the so-called "framework" of the deal, are actually a State Department fact sheet.
"It's not something the Iranians have signed on to. The Iranian negotiator, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, has already taken to Twitter to say what's represented in that fact sheet isn't accurate," he said.
"So, there's two possibilities: either the Iranians lied, at which point we have to conclude they're not sincere, or Mohammad Javad Zarif got back to Iran and is being held to account for an agreement which the supreme leader doesn't support."
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