Another deadline is approaching this week for finding an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program. But with reports of Tehran making demands on major points of the deal, another extension on the talks is also highly likely. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has stated that his country will only sign a deal if international sanctions are lifted first.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif left the talks in Vienna on Sunday, saying he was going back to Tehran for consultations with Iranian leaders. He’s expected to return early Tuesday morning, the day of the actual deadline.

The U.S. and Iran reached a preliminary agreement in April. It was a comprehensive plan to limit Tehran’s nuclear program over the next 15 years, but it left out several significant issues meant to be addressed in this current round of talks. Some of those issues include the nature of inspections and the speed at which Iran could expand its nuclear infrastructure.

Talks on the issue took a new turn in 2013 when newly-elected Iranian President Hassan Rouhani agreed to curb parts of Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for a partial lifting of sanctions. It was a thaw in relations between the U.S. and Iran after decades of hostilities. Now P5+1 members, consisting of China, France, Russia, Britain, the United States, plus Germany, have come together to negotiate a final agreement.

During Al Jazeera America’s Sunday night segment "The Week Ahead," Del Walters spoke to Emad Kiyaei, Executive Director at the American Iranian Council, and to Olli Heinonen, a Senior Fellow at Harvard University, who joined the discussion from Boston.

“Iran faces a very important decision,” says Heinonen. “Some of them are more technical in nature, and some of them are more of a policy nature. They have to agree to the final parameters of the enrichment program, particularly on Research and Development (R&D).”

Kiyaei says the United States is the most powerful player within the P5+1 group. “We know these negotiations started in 2003 and failed in 2005, because the European Union powers then could not get a green light from Washington. America’s involvement in these P5+1 talks are very paramount.”

He adds that bilateral relations between the U.S. and Iran have been marred for so many years and play into these negotiations because there’s a great deal of mistrust on both sides.

Some analysts say that the longer it takes to come complete a deal, the worse it is for Iran. Heinonen disagrees, however, saying that it may cause some additional complications, but that he’s still optimistic.

Khamenei’s statement on the removal of sanctions before a deal can be reached is part of what he’s referred to as seven “major red lines” in the talks. Among them is a call for no long-term restrictions, no requirement of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verification as a precondition for other steps in the deal, and no inspections of Iran’s military sites.

Elaborating on his previous statements of rocky relations between the U.S. and Iran, Kiyaei says that, “every time there’s been a promise from Western world powers, for example sanctions relief or removal, we’ve seen that they’ve backtracked on that. So Ayatollah Khamenei is trying to make sure that Iran’s national interests are kept in mind, and that the Iranians are guaranteed sanctions relief will occur.”

Kiyaei adds that, “as we’ve seen throughout these negotiations, Iran has kept its end of the bargain, and has made major concessions, but the same from world powers is yet to be seen. The ‘red lines’ are being put in place not only to give Iran more power in the negotiations, but also to indicate that Iran is serious about its own end of the commitment, as long as the world powers reciprocate.”

The U.S. and China will hold their seventh Strategic and Economic Dialogue this week in Washington. On the agenda will be a range of regional and global issues, including territorial disputes among Asian nations in the South China Sea.
The six nations with competing claims to the area are China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. The territories in dispute are the Spratly Islands, the Scarborough Shoal and the Parcel Islands. Beijing says it’s nearly done with a land reclamation project the Spratlys, something that has drawn sharp criticism from Washington.
Beijing dates its claim to the South China Sea to the Xia and Han dynasties, which ruled as far back as 2,000 B.C. During China’s republican era, in the first half of the 20th century, it mapped and named 291 islands and reefs in the region. The U.S. says the disputed territory is in international waters and wants the United Nations to determine sovereignty.

At the heart of the dispute is a major trade route, through which most of China’s oil imports flow. Control of the area could allow Beijing to disrupt shipments to all other countries in East and Southeast Asia as well as deny access to foreign military forces, such as the United States’.
The different nations are also trying to assert rights over fishing grounds and potentially vast undersea oil and gas reserves.
During The Week Ahead segment on Al Jazeera America, David Shuster spoke to Isaac Stone Fish, Asia Editor at Foreign Policy magazine. Stone Fish said that past meetings haven’t produced substantial results but that this one could be different.
“It is a very significant meeting,” he said. “With all of the tensions going on right now in the South China Sea, we might actually see some news coming out of these meetings.” He added, however, that it won’t consume the entire dialogue.
“I think the South China Sea is something where [the U.S.] clearly has the upper hand and China recognizes that other countries in Southeast Asia are seeing that it’s the aggressor, so I think the South China Sea is not going to dominate the talks.”
Stone Fish said that other topics the United States will want to discuss include North Korea, trade and Internet hacking. Earlier this month, a breach of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management network compromised sensitive security clearance information of millions of federal employees and contractors. Although the U.S. has not been able to verify those responsible, it has pointed the finger at Chinese hackers.
“The Chinese really don’t like to talk about this, pointing out that the United States is not the only one that gets hacked. China and Chinese companies get hacked a lot, and we just know a lot less about it,” he said.
Stone Fish said that “China is the world’s second-most-powerful country and they really are ready to compete with us economically, militarily and politically.”
The two nations hope to further their cooperation when Chinese President Xi Jinping makes his first state visit to the United States this September.

The United States is looking for new ways to help defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) as the group wields increasing power in the region. For example, the State Department said on Thursday, the U.S. will deliver 1,000 anti-tank weapons to Iraq in the coming weeks to combat suicide bombings and other attacks by ISIL fighters. 
Al Jazeera’s Jamie McIntyre reports that the U.S. is debating whether to send joint tactical air controllers, highly trained specialists who work alongside combat troops on the ground, using laser designators and GPS to call in direct strikes with pinpoint accuracy.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey has stopped short of recommending the tactical air controllers, however, because of the risk of more American casualties, and because it would shift the U.S. role from one of advising and assisting to a ground combat role.
Iraqi forces backed by Shia militias say they have made gains against ISIL recently by recapturing key parts of the northern oil refinery town of Beiji. Government and ISIL forces have been fighting for control of the town and its resources.
Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this week that coalition forces have killed about 10,000 ISIL fighters in Iraq and Syria since the coalition airstrikes began.
During Al Jazeera America's Sunday night segment The Week Ahead, Del Walters spoke to Larry Korb, a former assistant U.S. secretary of defense, and to Harleen Gambhir, a counterterrorism analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. Both guests joined the discussion from Washington.
Gambhir said that “casualty estimates aren’t equivalent to measures of strategic success. While we’ve seen U.S.-led coalition airstrikes have succeeded in hitting ISIL fighters and installations, the group is still growing in numbers each and every month.”
Gambhir said she expects a major offensive by ISIL later this month to mark the first anniversary of the group’s declaring itself a caliphate. “We’re actually seeing indications of a new strategic phase for ISIL in Syria," she said. "It’s gained the city of Palmyra, which is in the center of the country, and may start to move towards the Syrian central corridor.”
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a 2016 presidential candidate, has said “ISIL exists and grew stronger because of the hawks in our party who gave arms indiscriminately, and most of those arms were snatched up by ISIL. These hawks also wanted to bomb [Syrian President Bashar] al-Assad, which would have made ISIL’s job even easier. They created these people.”
Korb said he agrees with Paul’s statement. “Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which was the forerunner of ISIL, didn’t exist until we went in there. Our going into Iraq in 2003 was one of the greatest strategic blunders in the history of the United States. Not only has it created ISIL, it’s empowered Iran.”
Iraq was invaded twice by the United States. The first Gulf War, in 1991, involving a global coalition, was known as Operation Desert Storm. The second Gulf War, dubbed Operation Iraqi Freedom by President George W. Bush, was conducted by a smaller coalition in 2003 and was met by mass protests around the world.
Korb said ISIL is a group taking advantage of what’s happening in the Middle East, including the Arab Spring, adding that “even though we’ve supposedly killed 10,000 of them, the fact of the matter is that they’re getting recruits from all over the world.”
Gambhir said that in order to resolve the conflict, “we need both a military and a political solution. We need to empower the Iraqi security forces and empower moderate rebels on the ground in Syria. Right now we’re just focusing on Iraq and just focusing on military means.”

June is the final month of the Supreme Court’s annual term before the summer recess begins. Over the next few weeks, the Court will make decisions on 13 major cases. Among the issues up for debate are same-sex marriage, the Affordable Care Act, and religious freedom.

Although the Supreme Court’s decisions will mark a major victory or defeat for each case, former Pennsylvania senator and Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum says that the Supreme Court should not have more power than the other two branches of government.
"We're not bound by what nine people say in perpetuity,” Santorum told NBC’s Meet the Press. “We have an obligation and a right in a free society to push back and get our Congress and our President, and rally the American public, to overturn what the Court wants to do."
During Al Jazeera America's Sunday night segment "The Week Ahead," Del Walters spoke to Kurt Flehinger, a civil rights and criminal defense attorney, and to Tejinder Singh, an attorney at Goldstein and Russel and a contributor for the SCOTUSblog.
Obergefell vs. Hodges deals with the issue of same-sex marriage, and whether or not the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment requires individual states to allow it, as well as, recognize same-sex marriages lawfully performed out-of-state.
Lisa Stark reports that there are currently 37 states and the District of Columbia that allow same-sex couples to marry. Attorneys for Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee are arguing that marriage eligibility should be determined by the states and their voters. Opinion is often split along party lines, with Republican presidential candidates stating that marriage should only between a man and a woman.
Flehinger says, “When it comes down to issues of constitutional rights, these are rights that apply to individuals who are claiming that they have a fundamental right to marriage. Gay Americans are saying it’s available to us as well. They’re saying that the state has an obligation, if it’s going to confer a benefit called marriage to anybody, it has to do it for everybody.”
“There is no prospect that the Supreme Court will strike down laws permitting same-sex couples to get married,” says Singh. “There is a prospect that if the Supreme Court says the Equal Protection Clause doesn’t require recognition of this right, then judicial decisions that came out that way will be revisited. There is some precedent from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals saying that once a marriage has been fully performed, it’s then unconstitutional to break it apart.”
Another closely-watched case is King vs. Burwell which could deliver a huge setback to the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as “Obamacare.” The law offers subsidies to people who need help paying for health coverage, requiring them to buy it through an exchange established by the state, but only 14 states have set up their own exchanges. Four plaintiffs are claiming that the subsidies in the remaining 36 states are illegal, putting health insurance subsidies for about 7.5 million Americans at stake.
Singh says that “the ultimate outcome of this case will turn on a relatively technical issue of statutory interpretation. I think everybody agrees that Congress meant to extend subsides to everybody. It’s just not clear whether the text Congress enacted actually accomplished that goal.”
Flehinger agrees, adding that the case is before the Supreme Court simply because of politics.
In the case of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) vs. Abercrombie & Fitch, an employee of the retailer has admitted to not hiring 17-year-old Samantha Elauf in 2008 after assuming she was Muslim and would want to wear a headscarf. The company has a no-headwear policy, and claims it did not have direct knowledge of Elauf’s religion. Lower courts have ruled in favor of Abercrombie & Fitch.
“The government takes the position that employers really have to inquire and make sure they are extending proper accommodations, but the employer takes the position that employees have to put them on notice because they don’t want to be having awkward conversations during job interviews about whether someone is religious or not,” says Singh.
Singh adds that Justice Samuel Alito says the employer should make their employees aware of their policies, and then allow the employees to bring up any personal issues with them.
Flehinger says the concern is, “Who has the obligation to raise the issue in the interview?” He adds that “a lot of employees would feel uncomfortable to come forward [with their religious practices], because they feel they raise would the specter of being discriminated against, and employers don’t want to be accused of discriminating by raising what could be seen as an objective, overt symbol of religion.”
There are other important cases up for debate that are being followed closely. Glossip vs. Gross looks into whether the use of the drug Midazolam violates the 8th Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Walker vs. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans looks at whether or not the 1st Amendment protects controversial messages on specialty license plates, such as the use of the Confederate flag image. Michigan vs. the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will decide if the EPA has the authority to force coal and power industries to sharply reduce hazardous emissions. The City of Los Angeles vs. Patel will decide if requiring motel owners to keep guest registries for police inspection violates the 4th Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.