US State Department officials today insisted that the promised sanctions relief to Iran as part of the nuclear deal is going to be phased, with most of the relief awaiting formal US verification of Iranian compliance.

That is a problem for Iranian officials, who note that their requirements under the framework are not phased, and that they don’t expect the sanctions relief to be withheld either. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused the US statements of being contradictory to the framework agreement.

Western media presented Khamanei’s comments as the “real problem,” though the reality is that much of the framework has not been made public, so we don’t know for sure which, if either, nation is accurately representing the deal.

Officials had conceded there were some private agreements during the framework talks that the US and Iran would present the framework differently in their respective announcements, but the US seems to be so starkly off-base that Iranian officials are worried it means the US is trying to shift the reality of the deal toward an outright Iranian surrender.