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Iran and its negotiating counterparts are close to an agreement on reining in Iran's nuclear program to achieve a one-year breakout, but the two sides made little progress in the latest round of negotiations on reaching a consensus on Iran's nuclear research program and the lifting of sanctions, according to a source knowledgeable of the talks.

Iran is pushing for all United Nations Security Council resolutions to be lifted immediately following a deal, the source said. American negotiators are willing to lift punitive U.N. Resolutions on Iran, but not those related to nuclear proliferation.

And Iran is also reluctant to give up its development of more advanced centrifuges, the source said.

Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif met twice on Wednesday and will meet again March 15.

In remarks after the meetings, Kerry said the negotiations remain "tough and intense" and insisted that negotiators are working to achieve "the right deal."

"We've made some progress from where we were, but there are still significant gaps and important choices that need to be made," Kerry said. "he purpose of these negotiations is not to get any deal; it's to get the right deal, one that can withstand scrutiny."

The negotiating parties are close to an agreement on cutting down Iran's nuclear infrastructure to hold Iran to a one-year breakout time. That would ensure Iran would not be able to produce a nuclear weapon in under a year by reducing the number of centrifuges in operation and the processing of its uranium stockpiles.

Kerry also made a veiled reference to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's push to undermine the talks, which the Israeli leader has claimed are leading to a bad deal.

Negotiators must broker an initial agreement by the end of the month and pressure is ramping up in the United States after Netanyahu warned Congress that the Obama administration is brokering a "bad deal."

Kerry took a veiled swipe at those efforts on Wednesday as he insisted that "we aren't going to be distracted by external factors or politics" and -- echoing President Barack Obama -- pointed out that "no one has presented a more viable, lasting alternative" to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

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Iran nuclear talks hit speed bumps

Story highlights Hillary Mann Leverett: Middle East less stable than at any point in modern history United States needs constructive ties with all major regional states, including Iran, she says

Fast forward to this week, and Netanyahu was back, this time as prime minister, to make virtually identical claims about Iran. Yet not only has the U.S. intelligence community disagreed with Netanyahu's assessment of Iranian nuclear intentions, so does Israel's, according to leaked documents. Indeed, more than 200 retired security officers have publicly criticized Netanyahu as a danger to Israel's security. Sadly, Netanyahu's presentation reinforces caricatures regularly advanced by American and Gulf Arab pundits -- caricatures of Iran as aspiring Middle Eastern hegemon, bent on overthrowing an otherwise stable regional order. It's a misguided perspective that is actually hurting the United States.

In Netanyahu's view, America should only improve relations with an Iran that stops its regional "aggression," its support for "terrorism," and its "threat[s] to annihilate ... Israel." In other words, America should not improve relations with an Iran whose regional influence is rising.

In reality, Iran's rise is not only normal, it is actually essential to a more stable region. As nuclear talks with Tehran enter a decisive phase, rapprochement with a genuinely independent Iran -- not a nominally independent Iran whose strategic orientation is subordinated to U.S. preferences -- is vital to halting the decline of America's strategic position.

Washington has long worked to consolidate a highly militarized, pro-American Middle Eastern order. Yet these efforts -- pursued across Democratic and Republican administrations and intensified after 9/11 -- have clearly failed. As a result, the Middle East today is less stable, more riven with sectarian and ethnic conflict, and more violent than at any point in its modern history. And America, in a textbook illustration of "imperial overstretch," has made itself weaker, both regionally and globally.

America's quest for Middle Eastern hegemony has failed for many reasons.

For a start, seeking dominance impels Washington to replicate, in multiple venues, its Faustian bargain with imperial Iran from 1953 until the last shah's overthrow in 1979, providing substantial and effectively open-ended support to governments acting against the desires of their own publics. While American elites argue that America benefits from such arrangements, they are ultimately unsustainable, as Iran's 1979 revolution demonstrated.

A determination to dominate the Middle East keeps locking Washington into these kinds of relationships; for its own sake, the United States needs to stop trying to be the Middle East's hegemon. That means embracing a regional balance of power -- not the chimera of American dominance misleadingly labeled as "balance," but an actual balance in which major regional states, acting in their own interests, constrain one another.

Under any political system, Iran would be a significant regional actor, due to its geostrategic location, hydrocarbon resources, and large, educated population. But the Islamic Republic -- which Iranians built themselves as a participatory Islamist system representing their interests, not those of rulers beholden to foreign powers -- has a legitimacy America must accept to foster a truly stable Middle East.

Iran has gained influence in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen by backing political structures that, in Tehran's judgment, will produce governments committed to foreign policy independence. Washington needs cooperation with just such an Iran against common foes like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and to balance counterproductive policies of America's regional allies.

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Lindsey Graham on how he plans to stop dangerous Iran deal

By: USANEWS POLTC

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Lindsey Graham on how he plans to stop dangerous Iran deal - Video

Israeli PM says will use address to Congress to attack Iran deal
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he will use his Tuesday speech at the U-S Congress to warn against an upcoming deal over the Iranian nuclear program. Netanyahu says his speech...

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Israeli PM says will use address to Congress to attack Iran deal - Video

AIPAC 2013 Israeli PM Netanyahu Speech VIDEO IRAN Nuclear Threat American Israel Public Af
VIDEO AIPAC 2013 Benjamin Netanyahu Speech at the AIPAC American Israel Public Affairs Committee || PM Netanyahu Speech at the AIPAC 2013 American Israel Pub. VIDEO AIPAC 2013 Benjamin ...

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AIPAC 2013 Israeli PM Netanyahu Speech VIDEO IRAN Nuclear Threat American Israel Public Af - Video