In comments that appear aimed at preempting Senate attempts to impose sanctions and kill the Iran talks, the White House played up the idea of the talks failing on their own, and US “action” that would follow.

“We are in position to reverse any interim agreement and put in place additional pressure,” Obama insisted, saying that he was preparing measures for if the talks end without a successful deal.

With most of the hawks championing the new sanctions doing so explicitly to kill the talks, the idea that the talks will probably just fail on their own seems to be aimed at convincing them that no action is necessary to sabotage the process.

Administration officials also expressed “concern” about the Russian government’s own plans to relax sanctions during the interim agreement, saying that the deal could trigger US sanctions against Russia and violated the interim deal, even though there were clearly no restrictions on sanction easing in the pact.