john limbert: don't be surprised. i haven't seen the prayers or listen to them today, but don't be surprised to be here some traditional anti-american rhetoric coming out of that. that's not going to go. the slogans, the rest of it, those are not going to go away. barbara slavin: another question? >> i why does the other side my question and that is in this country there will be opposition vocal opposition. if you want to be this agreement by june 30, what do you think that opposition will do. what is the opposition likely to do to defeat this agreement? barbara slavin: anybody want to touch that? we don't want to give you ideas. coming out of some of these statements, what do you think their tactics will be? kelsey davenport: following the lines that the deal isn't good enough. you look at places where we don't have much detail and poke holes in what has been accomplished. there is still not necessarily a clear path forward after the 10 year limitations. iran could transition to an rich uranium. what the criticisms a

john limbert joins us. he served as secretary of state to iran from 2009 22010. and a conversation with democrat don beyer of virginia. and philip mattera, on which organizations benefit -- which nations benefit the most from has credits. "washington journal" is next. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] host: good morning and welcome to "washington journal." in a couple of hours, thousands of kids, families will dissent on the white house lawn for the annual 137th white house easter egg roll. the president and first lady will be there, and we will get an update on that and the resident's troubles this week to the pan-american conference what is ahead for the iranian nuclear deal. we will start our program with some of the news that developed

john limbert: it is funny or asked that question of me. my record on prediction on things iranian is about three in 10. which of the great if i was a baseball player, but not as a political analyst. we have all gotten it wrong. on iran. i'm not alone about that. but, i think a couple of things are clear. first, the clerics, the ruling clerics, live a long time. the story goes that one of the senior clerics that is the head of the council of experts, i believe, is so old they checked his telephone book and he had cain and abel's number. [laughter] it's true. there are all kinds of stories about these people. clearly, the place is changing. the dynamics that we have seen that rouhani could go back and get the hero's welcome having negotiated and been so friendly with a representative of the great satan. that in itself represents a change. i mean you have to look for , changes in places you may not expect them. they are going to be small symbolic, but there. i would say this. you know is iran going to go , through some great change tomorrow?

host: john limbert is professor of middle eastern studies at the u.s. naval ac academy.e also served as former deputy assistant secretary of state for iran. here to talk with us about the iran nuclear agreement and what is ahead. we are hearing this described as a framework. what does that mean? guest: that means that this is not yet a detailed agreement which both sides have signed. they are not details in it. what it lays out our principles. -- are principles. the site has said a time limit of june 30 to reach a final agreement. what they have agreed on are a set of principles about enrichment, inspections, sanctions, dispute resolution and so forth. host: you brought along a copy released by the white house. a u.s. version of this framework. are all of those items on that framework agreed to by the iranians? guest: this is not surprising to me. this is the american version. of what we believe is in the framework. the iranians, obviously, are going to present this differently from their side. this is normal in any negotiation that the two sides will go back and say her

and john limbert. a member of our task force and so much more. he is the class of 1955 professor of middle eastern studies at the u.s. naval academy. he has had a 34 year career in the foreign service, mostly in the middle east and islmic africa. in 2009 and 2010 he came out of retirement to be the deputy assistant to the secretary of state for iranian affairs during an earlier effort during the beginning of the obama administration to get this nuclear deal. before joining the foreign service, he taught in iran as a peace corps volunteer. for 444 days from 1979 to 1981 he was a guest of the previous ayatollah in tehran when it was held hostage. john will have a lot to say on what this means for u.s.-iran relations. without further ado, we will start. cliff. i will start with you. i want to get your general impressions of what has been announced, and the likely obstacles that might be on the horizon. clifford kupchan: so far so good. any deal will be an ugly deal. it is not a pretty deal. there are some technical problems, there's a lot we don't k

and john limbert. a member of our task force and so much more. he is the class of 1955 professor of middle eastern studies at the u.s. naval academy. he had a 34-year career in the foreign service, mostly in the middle east and islamic africa. in 2009 and 2010 he came out of retirement to be the deputy

john, do you want to add anything? deputy limbert: i would go to the second question, not that i know of. there was talk of the end of the bush administration of sending american diplomatic personnel to a u.s. interest section in the swiss embassy into ron -- in tehran. they have been the representative american interest there. since 19 eight -- since 1980 when relations were formally broken, there are no personnel there. the case of cuba is a large intersection with a large staff of diplomatic personnel who are also under swiss flags. with iran we are not there yet. we're getting there with the cuba case. it's an interesting one. obviously the rule is, no entity goes on forever. at some time things change. we establish relations with the soviet union less than 20 years after the bolshevik revolution. with china, it took us longer. but not much. 20 years before nixon went to china. the possibility -- it is one of those possibilities, particularly if something productive comes out of these talks, which both sides see as positive. then

john, you can talk about whether diplomacy has to be consistent. amb. limbert: no. was in the foreign service for 35 years. i guess i was what you call a diplomat. my wife would laugh if she heard me described that way. no, there is not any. diplomacy is making in perfect deals with dubious partners. people you do not like or trust. and at one point -- i mean the saudis know this. the saudis have never broken relations with iran. they are not friends with the iranians but they have never broken relations. when necessary, they will talk. they have a lot of things to talk about -- the persian gulf, the world oil market the hajj, holy sites. in yemen the historical irony, people who tell you it is a sectarian thing, it is sunni against shia, they may forget that back in the 1960's the saudis were supporting the zaidi shiite royalists against the nasserists. there are other interests at play. be wary of those who try to boil it down to one issue -- sectarian, persian, this or that. there are a lot of factors in play and it is what makes diplomacy so interesting and diff