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

limbert: -- dr.arsi: -- amb. limbert: if there is some agreement on what it is called the nuclear issue, we and the iranians are still going to have a lot of differences between us. that is true. issues about the middle east issues about terrorism, issues about human rights. those are not going to go away. but what we will be able to do and we have not been able to do for the last 35 years is to talk about them. to sit down as states do, as governments do. this idea of iran, however, as some in. power that -- as some imperial power that wants to extend its reach all over the middle east and re-create a new persian empire, i don't know where that comes from. i am a teacher of history. students know there has not been a persian since 640 ad. there's not going to be one. iran u.n. is isolated for reasons of language, geography and religion . the idea that we and our friends are facing some kind of resurgent persian empire, to me that is scare talk. that is not historical or history driven or reality dri

limbert: don't be surprised. i haven't seen the friday prayers or listened 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.

deputy limbert: very good. i will speak briefly and then -- i know we have a lot of time for questions. there are always very good questions. put two questions up front. where are we and where are we going? where are we right now? double overtime right now. where are we going? that is the hard question. the iranian friends like to say there are only two possibilities. either we get to a deal, or we don't get to a deal. there are only really two outcomes. i think what we need to do tonight is take a breath, step back a little bit from talks about breakout triggers, snap back, you and resolutions, centrifuges, subterfuges, all of that. look at something a little bigger. one question i would put out here is, why has this been so hard? why is this so difficult? it has been 18 months since the first agreement. well, one reason is, for better or worse, the two sides decided they were going to take on what is one of the hardest issues between us and the iranians. what makes it so hard? it is not the technical part. se

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

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 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