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Iran should make significant concessions but that the west should make none at all, that's not negotiations. that's a requirement that the other side surrender which makes one wonder, do the critics of this negotiating process want a better deal or do they really want no deal at all so that it opens up another path to deal with the problem, which is war. in that case, the danger for those critics was not that geneva negotiations were failing but that they were succeeding. let's get started. you just heard my take. let's bring in some experts. ken pollack is a former cia analyst and a staffer...

Soon. >> ken, are you as optimistic? >> i certainly share joe's hope this deal can be brought about and both of your expectation that this is a good deal. but i think the problems that have arisen make me more skeptical and more concerned maybe a better way to put it. the french objections don't seem to be terribly meaningful as you pointed out these are things that should be dealt with in a final status agreement between the two of them. it's not really clear why the french decide to make an issue of this now. that makes me a little more concerned than i was going into this about how hard it ...

Into the atmosphere. why do you think that's not a problem? the french is saying we can't allow them to keep working on this reactor because once you reach a critical stage there's no going back. >> it's a problem but not a problem for three or four years. the reactor is behind schedule. it won't come online until the end of next year. then you put the fuel in it and some plutonium is produced but that takes at least another year and then you have to take that fuel out and reprocess it and iran doesn't have a reprocessing facility. it's a problem three or four years down the road. in this inte...

Iran sanctions. and rowhani may be wondering, do i really have a partner over there in washington? >> when you look at this and take ken's point, if you were to get a deal of some kind, that the international community can live with, that the obama administration could live with, what happens in congress? will congress undo the sanctions because only congress can do that? >> as you know, fareed, undoing sanctions takes a much longer time than putting them on. and you're always going to have political opposition and ideological opposition to this congress and the president. but the president ha...

Outflank the united states by being more soft. what do you think is going on here? >> the other members were furious. you have to understand everybody else was in agreement and even the french negotiators were in agreement until the foreign minister arrived and threw a spanner in the works. some suspect this has commercial motivations. france is trying to position itself for lucrative contracts with the saudis and other gulf states by showing opposition to iran. some think it's a play for attention. the reason i'm optimistic is underlying it the core strategic objectives of iran and united sta...