little girl have a place. be lucia newman, al jazeera. >> what do you think? tell us on aljazeera.com/americatonight. we'll have more of "america tonight," tomorrow. >> i'm ali velshi, "on target" tonight. in tehran. >> how much could nation possibly trust the ufts,. >> the same wild accusations against united states. >> comprehensive diplomatic resolutions and the most difficult and long lasting national security situations

we've faced in a very long time. >> it's early thursday morning in tehran, and optimisti optimis building that a deal could be made less than a week from today. but president obama and ayatollah khamenei have said they are willing to walk away if they don't get the deal they want. during this show i'll give you more of our unprecedented access while i'm here in tehran. and david schuster is in new york. david. >> head of the be international atomic agency, is headed to where you are, to meet with the ayatollah khamenei, is that seemingly a positive sign?

>> it is david. both to do with the inspection and the goals of iran's nuclear program. iran has complainted that it is a peaceful nuclear program for civilian use for the enrichment of uranium to create energy, electricity. many in the west have maintained that this is for military, nuclear weaponry. two things have to lap. the iaea wants to inspect the facilities, and they want to interview iran's most senior nuclear scientists, by interviewing them, determining what they've been up to and trying to figure out whether this is for civilian purposes or for armments as some in the west say. until very recently, the ayatollah himself has said no dice.

we're not going to have international inspectors come in and interview our scientists. but the head of the iaea will speak to president rouhani, not the ayatollah, if they can come to some sort of terms, you remember president obama saying yesterday, there are things that iran will not be willing to do, and if they are not willing to do, there won't be a deal, this is something that iran is not willing to do, allowing their scientists to be interviewed. if there is a conversation going on about this david, there is a chance that the zeal would be made. if the deal is made, it will be historic, it will be yet another milestone that president obama has achieved in the last week or so. david what is going on with the president at this stage in his second term where most people are thought of almost in a lame duck way and he's breaking all these deals, making all these deals that are creating historic

proportion. >> and ali that is such a great point. here in the united states, the string of political successes have given president obama a significant boost. his polling rating has reached 50% for the first time in a long time. controversial still to come including any deal with iran. first victory came after a huge set back, involving the transpacific partnership, tpp as it's flown, between united states and 11 pacific rim nation and involves 40% of the global economy. last wednesday the senate approved giving the president fast track authority, that rescued the deal after house democrats nearly buried the legislation in early june. the president signed the fast-track deal this week. after the break through on tpp, the u.s. supreme court handed

president obama a huge victory on the affordable care act or obamacare. symbolically represents a huge defeat for republicans who have tried to repeal obamacare more than 50 times. the very next day, the supreme court made its decision backing same sex marriage in all 50 states, giving the white house a reason to celebrate. the president said, when all americans are treated equal we are all more free. that brings us to today, president obama's announcement in the rose garden announcing that the united states is formally reestablishing relations with cuba, and secretary of state john kerry will go to the cuban capital later this summer to open the embassy. that brings us to iran.

the united states appears to be on the brink of a deal with its long time middle eastern enemy, the june 30th deadline for the deal have come and gone but the talks have extended for at least another week. near the negotiations over iran, two fundamental issues have to be resolved. first acknowledge inspection of iran's nuclear facilities and military sites. second, the information it has to provide about its nuclear past, president obama and george w. bush, before secretary kerry and iranian dmoaments were about to come to their first deal. several critics agre disagree we

secretary of state kerry. one of the form he u.s. officials that wrote and signed a letter, published on the washington institute of near east policy, ambassador jeffrey, the obama administration seems to be back away from previous demands that iran give a full accounting, on its past nuclear development, there are three crucial parts on the development of a nuclear warhead, the first is a fissile punch and the third is the complex technology involved in placing a nuclear device in a warhead and being able to detonate it. in your view why is it so crucial to know iran's history on that third part?

>> for two reasons. and this is absolutely central to why we wrote the letter. and our concerns upon what kerry said and what we sense might happen. as you absolutely correctly pointed out in your chart, the -- two of the three limits, the fissible material and long range rockets are dual use. it's not a smoking pistol if you can find enriched uranium, theoretically there are other purposes for that as you pointed identity but in terms of weaponizing a nuclear warhead, therthere is only one purpose of that is to create a hi hir hiroa

incident. is it is very important psychologically and politically for iran to either confess to what it has done or be held accountable and blamed for the international atomic energy agency, until that is done sanction he at least those related to weapons programs should not be -- sanctions at least those related to weapons perhaps should not be lifted. >> it would set a bad precedent if iran or anybody else could get away with not disclosing research they were carrying on years ago. but such precedent isn't it immaterial over a weaponnization in the next ten years? >> not entirely.

if we do not know the dimension of that program, if we don't know in detail more than we have from the intelligence, exactly what they were looking for, what kind of materials they needed, they might be able to import things, again dual-use things that they would be able to shift to produce a warhead. that's something we don't want. as the president said, after ten years, there is no stopping these people from breaking out almost immediately and even in the agreement as the president laid it out in april, within a year or less, they could have enough fissible material. but do they also have enough material to put together a warhead? that is something we need to know, this is really important. >> in the bipartisan letter you helped writ, you wrote about iran coming clean about its past decisions towards a warhead, you 92 also were clear that it

needto be performance based sanction he around built in penalties, if iran doesn't follow through the penalties are clear. what has been the reaction from the obama administration to this letter? >> the obama administration actually has been and this is a change in its normal reaction to criticism which has been quite violent in the past, essentially embraced it and said yeah, that's what we're trying to do. but they missed two points. one is, many of us, not all of us, but many of us who signed the letter really don't think that if we got everything that we want and the president said he would want is a good or great agreement. it's the lowest possible common denominator that may be acceptable if we get everything we put in it. because we're not going to stop their enrichment efforts and they're going to remain a danger. but the other point is iran has to be blocked in its political and military efforts in the region. the reason the raw iran programs

such a worry and the other programs in the region are not, is the iran hegemony in the area. we have to do that to complement the agreement. >> isn't that separate from where iran has nuclear capability? everyone would love if iran stopped funding hezbollah, but shouldn't that be stopped in the beginning whether or not iran has access to materials to build a nuclear weapon? >> you're absolutely right. technically the administration that is done this and we all understand and accept that. that is the administration has done that by saying iran's role in terrorism, in syria, all fine

and good, this is only on the nuclear program. but we can find statements by the president and his advisors that this agreement he thinks is going to have a transformative effect on iran. it is going to become a status quo country because it knows it can trust us and that iran will change its spots. that's what drives much of our criticism of this agreement, it's this underlying feeling that the agreement regardless of what's in it will produce a different iran. we don't think so. we think it will produce possibly a more aggressive iran and that's bad enough. >> ambassadoryary, thanks for being ton program. we appreciate it. all of this continues to be monitored very closely. in the capital of iran, tehran, that is where ali velshi is standing by.

ali. >> if a deal is reached, what happens when the u.s. gets a new president? >> iran wants to make an agreement and doesn't want the agreement to be blown apart by the next u.s. president. that's what we're worried about. >> our coverage continues from iran in a moment.

>> i'm ali velshi "on target" from iran. >> will the next administration, will the next president honor such a deal if it's made? already, congress has warned, it may not happen that way, i sat down with foaz isade and he tells me why iranians are so concerned about that. and what iran is radar to do to

get a deal. >> iranian leaders, especially during this administration ofo a deal, kind of closing down iran's nuclear deal, which they spent a lot of money for, people have died for it, and what they want is lifting of sanctions. they don't want sanction he suspended, i can tell you why sanction he are not good enough for them, they want them lifted. if they can get that from the other side then they will have an agreement and everybody will be happy. if the other side wants to close iran's nuclear program more or less and keep the major sanctions at the same time, then you're not going to have an agreement. iran has 10,000 kilogram of enriched uranium. that 10,000 can be turned to

300, 98% of it's going to be gone. iran has been spending time obuild a react orin arak, the city of arak. two-thirds of the enriched uranium is going to be stored somewhere. iran is getting a lot of restrictions on its nuclear program. the price of that is lifting of sanctions. >> the example is that the u.s. treasury uses when talking about effective ways to deal with governments that they don't li like. they have been very effective. tell us about this. the banking sanctions mean, if it's medicines or spare parts or automobiles, money to purchase these things to sell in iran cannot be transferred to other businesses. >> you know one of the sanctions that we got two years ago almost, was we could not use the swiss system.

>> the international banking transfer system. >> transfer system. so no matter what we wanted to buy we couldn't. because we couldn't transfer the money. and in reality, the iranian banks were cut off from the international banking system. and that makes the situation quite serious. so what iran is saying is that, lift the sanctions and okay, we're going to forget about the nuclear program but lift the sanctions. the problem that we have is that we have some people in the u.s, within the u.s. congress, we have leaders of the republican party, and others, the israeli lobby, that would want iran's nuclear program closed down more or less, they don't have a problem with that part but they also want to keep the sanctions. they want to have their cake and eat it too. they want to have it both ways. >> their response is that in iran there is a supreme leader

who is more powerful than all of congress. one person who can say yes or no. >> right. and if you have been reading what he's been saying, he's been quite accommodating. the basic idea that iran more or less closes its nuclear program and then we get the sanctions lifted. why lifting is important because suspending, we get just suspension, it's done by the president. the u.s. president is supposed to call the congress inform the congress that he wants suspension and then we don't know who will come after obama. if it's a republican they could just forget about the agreement. in the u.s. history we have had instances of that. some president comes they make an international agreement -- >> iran wants permanence. >> doesn't want the disagreement

blown apart by the next u.s. president. that's what we're worried about. >> and of course all eyes center on vienna where those negotiations continue on their way and they'll go until july 7th. al jazeera's james bays with more. >> still some sticking points and a great zeal for them to get through because this is supposed to be the final -- deal for them oget through, they have a great deal to make sure that neither side thinks that there's been some misunderstanding. we understand that more foreign ministers will be coming in the coming hours. to get momentum of this moving towards a deal which they want to achieve in the last week or so. >> all sides are eeg are for an agreement but up next we'll talk to a man who thinks this is a crummy deal, he'll tell us why

coming up.

>> after months of marathon negotiations the united states and iran seem to be inches towards a deal. the potential of nuclear be relations hangs in the battle. believes an agreement would only cause more plbs against the middle east. he calls the deal a crummy deal, how come? >> there are a few issues with

the deal. start with a premise of do we need a deal with iran? does iran need to be a friend of the united states at this point in time? sure it does, everyone would love iran to be a friend but -- >> this isn't what this deal is about, that iran is a friend or rolling back the hezbollah groups or anything like that. can we stop for ten years iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon? >> there's problem right there. ten years is a very, very long time in diplomatic relation and very, very short in -- >> isn't it longer than a year or two, which is the breakout be time, it's got maybe a year before it can do what we're asking be done for maybe isn't a ten year period better? >> if you put it like that, maybe it is but i don't think that's the case. first of all nobody guarantees

that iran that has a long long history of cheating on deals will actually stand by its -- by its ten-year option. first of all, let's remember that we're signing with one man, unelected man, ali khamenei, 79 years old not in the greatest of health, after he pass he away that the next supreme leader is not necessarily going to oblige by anything that he has signed. >> one of the things that if he does sign, one of the suggestions is that part of this deal would include at least some ability to monitor in some fashion what iran is doing at some of its research facilities. is there stlmg at least that may not be worth a deal but is there something promising about this? >> technically we have a monitoring, iran is obliged to accept monitoring right now. the problem is, that as the

international atomic agency in vienna has reported over and over and over again is that over time iran has reneglecte renegef those agreements and hasn't allowed inspectors access to where they want to. and by the way, while we are negotiating, our position which has been initially inspections anywhere, any time, is now a little less than anywhere and less than any time. it's any time the iranians disagree to any time -- >> the key issue is not whether it's anywhere, any time, is when the inspections happen are they effective? can the united states effectively monitor? it's a situation of not, we're coming tomorrow, no you have got to come the next day, but the process whether the united states and international inspectors will know what's going on.

>> the united states has had actually quite a crummy record in intelligence over how people are going to develop nuclear weapons. we didn't know that russia was going to do it initially, we didn't lately know that india was going to do it, pakistan is going to do it, north korea, et cetera, et cetera. so the intelligence, actually, the intelligence agencies will be less active because they'll rely on the ye iaea only and tht will make some of the agencies less reliable in their inspections. >> thanks for coming in, we appreciate it. >> thank you very much. >> it's been an intriguing day in tehran, iran. the be head of the iaea is going to tehran ospeak to president

rouhani, ali. >> i am speaking with as many officials as i can. to see what they want, they all want diplomatic sanctions ended, but underneath this is a best of your knowledge any society, they want to be exposed with the world, they want to trade with the world, want to sell their goods to the world, they want to buy new cars new equipment new things, they want to buy from russia from china, they are not going to get what think want and be hasan rouhani, they elected, what i can get everybody to tell me is they want these sanctions to end and they will give up the nuclear program they are so proud of in order to get an economy that works. i'll continue on this subject

but for now that's it for me ali velshi from tehran. >> i'm david schuster, on behalf of ali velshi and his crew, and the entire team at al jazeera, i'm davi there's, thank you for watching. >> a new future. >> we don't have to be imprisoned by the past. >> the u.s. and cuba make it official and restore diplomatic ties. i.s.i.l. launches coordinated attacks in egypt, stoking fears of more unrest to come. police killing. new evidence released in a fatal police shooting in washington state. no