Can U.S. solve ‘Rubik’s Cube’ of Iran nuclear negotiations?

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• GWEN IFILL:

  Now to a looming deadline in one of the most significant and controversial foreign policy initiatives of the Obama administration, a nuclear deal with Iran.

  Those talks resumed again in Vienna yesterday. Earlier today, Secretary of State John Kerry held discussions with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. This round follows a week of unproductive negotiation sessions on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York last month.

  Joining me with an update on the hurdles ahead of the November 24 deadline for a deal is our chief foreign affairs correspondent, Margaret Warner.

  Thank you for joining us and reporting on this.

  What has happened since this last deadline expired?

• MARGARET WARNER:

  Well, Gwen, very little happened since the July 24 deadline expired, and disappointingly little.

  The expectation had been that they had gotten close enough on a lot of the major points that this six months would be enough to cement a deal. And, instead, really, it has come down to a kind of stalemate over the number one thing that the U.S. and the West want, which is very sharp limits on Iran's uranium enrichment capability.

  And that is to assure the world that Iran really means it when it says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, and to make the so-called breakout time to a weapon long enough that the world would still have time to react with military action if needed.

  And going in at least to these meetings yesterday and today, they were at loggerheads over the demand by the P5-plus-one, the six powers, that the number of operating centrifuges in Iran has to be sharply cut back.

• GWEN IFILL:

  So, what specifically is the U.S. asking for to get to that long-term goal?

• MARGARET WARNER:

  The U.S.' point is, look, what — you have got 9,500 operating centrifuges — I don't want to get lost in the weeds of this — — out of your 19,000. And you are going to have to dramatically cut those back. That is way more than you need for medical isotopes or electricity purposes. And the world knows that.

  Iran is telling — the Iranian negotiators are telling the U.S., look, we can't give on that number of centrifuges. It's a point of national pride. It's kind of a red line.

  Now, is that a negotiating tactic or not? I mean, they're saying — President Rouhani, the new president of Iran, who got elected promising to get sanctions lifted in return for putting some limits on the nuclear program, he can't afford that against the more conservative voices, including the supreme leader. That is the number one sticking point.

  There are other ones having to do with duration, how long this agreement would extend, but that's — that's the number one thing.

• GWEN IFILL:

  Are there any areas of agreement they can build on?

• MARGARET WARNER:

  There are many, many things.

  But one senior U.S. official said to me, look, it is a Rubik's Cube. It's the old rule of negotiations. Nothing is agreed until everything's agreed.

  And if you can't get down to an agreement on enrichment capability, everything else falls apart, or nothing else goes into effect.

• GWEN IFILL:

  Now, there's some new variables since last time they met, and that is the rise of the Islamic State threat. Does that put any kind of damper over these negotiations?

• MARGARET WARNER:

  Well, there was a lot of speculation about that, Gwen, and during the U.N. General Assembly week.

  Both the U.S. and the Iranians are saying, no, we're separating it. Foreign Minister Zarif said, publicly and privately, our plate is already full.

  That said, there are some voices in Iran who are saying, you know, President Obama, since this started a year ago, he's got a lot more problems on his plate, Ukraine and the I.S. threat. And he really needs us.

  And so there is one school of thought that that's one reason the Iranians are playing hardball now. Now, that said, Gwen, these talks in Vienna went longer than expected today. As far as I understand, they're still going on. U.S. officials said they took that as a good sign, that Zarif and Kerry went back in for more talks.

  So, you never know. Negotiations are like this, and sometimes both sides hold back until almost the deadline. Of course, the question is, even if they agreed on all the major issues, could they still technically do it by November 24? The Americans say yes. The Iranians are talking about an extension.

• GWEN IFILL:

  So, if for some reason, this all fell apart and the U.S. walked away from the table or Iran walked away from the table, does the president have any other choices, any other fallback positions?

• MARGARET WARNER:

  Well, Gwen, he goes back to the really unpalatable choices he had. Let's go back last spring of 2013, when IAEA, the Atomic Energy Agency, said Iran was proceeding with its nuclear program. The U.S. had slapped the fourth round of sanctions on Iran. It looked pretty bad.

  Then Rouhani got elected in June on this promise, as I said, that he was going to change the whole approach. Before that, the president was thinking about, is Israel going to take military action, or have I promised I will essentially take military action to a prevent nuclear weapon, Iran from having nuclear weapons capability?

  So, if the whole thing were to fall apart, the president would be faced with those unpalatable choices again, and this time in a world that is far more complicated, and he has far more crises on his plate than he did at a year and-a-half ago.

• GWEN IFILL:

  Well, as far as we know, they're at least still talking tonight.

  Margaret Warner in New York for us tonight, thank you.

• MARGARET WARNER:

  My pleasure, Gwen.