Washington and its allies’ demand of intrusive inspections of Iran’s military facilities is a non-starter in the P5+1 nuclear talks, an American scholar and journalist in Wisconsin says.

“It seems that the Obama administration and its allies in the P5+1 talks are holding up obstacles at the very last moment to the nuclear deal with Iran,” said Dr. Kevin Barrett, a founding member of the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance.

“And especially this issue of inspections, they are demanding extremely intrusive inspections. At times, I am not sure what the details are at this moment, but earlier this week they were talking about demanding kind of on-demand inspections of Iran’s military facilities. Of course, this is a non-starter, because the US has repeatedly threatened Iran militarily, saying nothing is off the table,” he stated.

Iran and the P5+1 countries - the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany - have been engaged in crucial talks in Vienna towards reaching a landmark agreement over Tehran’s nuclear program.

The negotiating sides missed an initial deadline of June 30 and all parties agreed on a new July 7 deadline. However, negotiations will continue for "a couple" of more days as some issues remain unresolved.

Dr. Barrett said that “the Israelis who have tremendous power in the US have been pushing for war with Iran ever since 9/11, which in fact was orchestrated largely by the neoconservatives, Likudnik Israelis, in order to turn the US military against the seven countries in five years which General [Wesley] Clark explains to us was the purpose of 9/11, and Iran was number seven on that list and by far the most important country that the Zionists wanted to attack.”

“So there is a clear-cut case of Western and especially Zionist aggression against Iran. They have been planning a war on Iran for several decades really, ever since the revolution of 1979. And in that context, demanding this kind of intrusive inspections of Iran’s military facilities is completely absurd, because these inspections are in fact espionage operations,” he added.

“The fact that was explained by Scott Ritter in regards to the inspections in Iraq prior to the war that utterly destroyed that country. And clearly they might be planning to do the same thing in Iran. The Iranian government will be completely crazy to allow on-demand inspections of its military facilities,” the scholar noted.
“So when they appeared to be raising that as an absolute necessary part of the deal, it makes one wonders whether they really want a deal or not, or whether that might be some kind of pressure point to they are using to get something else. But one has to ask oneself what else do they want? The CIA and its loads of intelligence actually certified that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program,” he pointed out.

“And even the Israelis admit that their only concern is that sometime after this deal expires – ten years from now – they are worried what might happen then? Well, this is completely ridiculous, especially given that the Israelis have 400 plus nuclear weapons, and the Americans have many, many thousands of nuclear weapons, as well as many other countries around the world, where Iran is the only country in the world who Supreme Leader has issued a fatwa, completely banning all nuclear weapons, reiterating a ban imposed by the father of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini,” Dr. Barrett underlined.

US Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Vienna on Thursday that “we are not going to sit at the negotiating table forever.”

“Let me assure you we would not be here continuing to negotiate for the sake of negotiating,” he said. “We know that difficult decisions don't become easier over time.”

The top US diplomat said that the US and its negotiating partners are “prepared to call an end to this” if “tough decisions don't get made.”

During a meeting with a group of Democratic senators on Wednesday, President Barack Obama said the chances of a deal with Iran were less than 50-50 at this point, according to one of the senators present at the meeting.

By Press TV