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 Tehran and Washington, which have called each other the "Great
Satan" and a member of the "Axis of Evil" during 36 years of
hostility, are more used to exchanging insults than defending each
other. The two foes cut diplomatic ties after Iranian
revolutionaries seized 52 hostages in Tehran's U.S. embassy during
the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Yet for a month now the U.S. State Department has been defending
Iran from suggestions that it was on the verge of violating a
requirement to reduce its low-enriched uranium stockpile under a
2013 interim nuclear with major powers.
Low-enriched uranium can be further enriched to make fissile
material for an atomic bomb, and one of the main goals of any
nuclear deal is to restrain Iran's production of it.
Washington has also deflected criticism of continued Iranian
violations of U.N. sanctions and reports of attempts to illicitly
procure nuclear technology usable in activities the West wants it to
suspend.
The Obama administration says it is aware of suspected breaches, but
they are not covered under the interim accord, known as the Joint
Plan of Action, which was signed in November 2013 and has been
extended three times.
 "Not defending Iran, defending the JPOA we negotiated with Iran and
making clear we've all been in compliance. V(ery) different things,"
former State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf, now an adviser to
Secretary of State John Kerry in the U.S. delegation at the Iran
talks tweeted last month.
One senior U.S. official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of
anonymity, acknowledged that the U.S. defense of Iranian compliance
was "weird" and did not come naturally.
"Iran has done a lot of bad things in Syria and across the Middle
East, and still does. It's holding Americans hostages. But the fact
is, it's complying with the JPOA."
By "hostages," the official was referring to U.S. citizens detained
in Iran, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, on trial
for alleged espionage. The United States says charges against
Rezaian and others are false and has demanded their release.
Ali Vaez, an Iran expert at the International Crisis Group, said
that the Iranian government has also been criticized by hardline
conservatives in Iran for defending the "Great Satan."
"Such are the perils of dealing with the enemy," he said, adding
that "the U.S. is not defending Iran, but the deal with Iran."
STOCKPILE TROUBLE
If Iran were shown to have cheated on the JPOA, it would make it
more difficult for Obama to sell a long-term accord to lift
sanctions on Iran in exchange for curbs on Iranian nuclear work to
skeptical lawmakers in the Republican-led Congress.
The Obama administration says a report by the International Atomic
Energy Agency last week found that Iran was in compliance with the
JPOA, by holding no more low-enriched uranium at the end of June
than it had three months before.
But nuclear expert David Albright said Tehran had met the target
only by converting some low enriched uranium into a form that could
be easily converted back, violating the spirit if not the letter of
the agreement.
Albright said the case showed Washington was "prepared to legally
reinterpret the deal" to explain away poor performance by Iran.
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Olli Heinonen of Harvard University, former deputy head of the IAEA,
echoed Albright's caution.
"Any concessions in the implementation of agreed parameters will
further reduce the breakout time and erode the credibility of the
agreement," he said.
A senior U.S. official dismissed Albright's criticism, saying Iran
had done what it was required to do.
WHAT VIOLATIONS?
It was not the first time Washington has defended Iran.
After the IAEA reported that Iran had begun feeding uranium into a
single advanced centrifuge last year, which would be a violation of
the 2013 deal, U.S. negotiators said it was apparently a mistake on
Iran's part and that it had quickly stopped.
A U.N. panel of experts that monitors compliance with Security
Council sanctions has repeatedly reported that Iran is suspected of
buying equipment linked to the activities it is now negotiating to
suspend.
But in its annual report in April, the panel said it had received no
formal notifications from U.N. member states of Iranian breaches of
sanctions, and suggested this may be because countries were trying
to avoid damaging nuclear talks.
The State Department denied that Washington was withholding
information about Iranian sanctions violations from the United
Nations, and said any such violations were not breaches of the
interim deal in any case.
Meanwhile, U.S. officials note that the Obama administration has
continued to expand its own blacklist over violations of separate
U.S. sanctions, and to condemn Iranian human rights violations.
Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, said Obama had worked hard in his first term to
persuade the world of the dangers of Iran's nuclear program but has
since reversed course in order to secure a deal he desperately wants
as his second term nears the end.
"In order to reach a deal," he told Reuters. "The administration has
had to persuade a skeptical Congress and U.S. public that Iran's
nuclear activities are now transparent and peaceful."
(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Peter Graff)
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