Obama: Challenges remain with Iran

President Obama says the new agreement with Iran has one goal — preventing it from obtaining a nuclear weapon — and is not designed to address other issues involving the Tehran government that neighbors perceive as a threat.

"We're not measuring this deal by whether we are solving every problem that can be traced back to Iran, whether we are eliminating all their nefarious activities around the globe," Obama said in an interview with columnist Thomas Friedman of The New York Times.

The deal is structured so that "Iran could not get a nuclear weapon," Obama said. "That was always the discussion."

Skeptics question whether the agreement will end Iran's nuclear ambitions.

They also say that ending sanctions on Iran will replenish its treasury, providing the government money it can use to finance terrorism and spread its influence throughout the Middle East — a concern Obama did not dispute.

"That is a possibility, and we are going to have to systematically guard against that and work with our allies — the Gulf countries, Israel — to stop the work that they are doing outside of the nuclear program," Obama told Friedman.

"But," he added, "the central premise here is that if they got a nuclear weapon, that would be different, and on that score, we have achieved our objective."