One of the oddest parts of the Obama administration’s effort to sell the Iran nuclear deal to the American public is its insistence that we should believe the Iranians when they say they don’t want nuclear weapons, but not believe them when they shout “death to America.”

“Secretary of State John Kerry is still seeking a nuanced explanation for Iran’s government saying, ‘Death to America,'” Front Page magazine reports. “He called the Iranian government’s cries of ‘Death to America’ ‘not helpful’ and suggested that the Supreme Leader might not really mean it. And now Kerry would like to emphasize that aside from the ‘Death to America’ chants and the nuclear bombs and constant threats of war, at no time was he made aware of an Iranian plan to destroy America.”

The administration’s supporters agree. Writing for The New Yorker, Robin Wright says “death to America” is a sentiment not held by all Iranians. He relies on anecdotal evidence.

“Over the decades, I’ve heard ‘Death to America!’ shouted routinely at Friday prayers, and at commemorations of the U.S. Embassy takeover and other demonstrations,” he writes. “The regime refuses to shelve the slogan. These days, however, students are often bussed in on anniversaries as crowd-filler; the perk is a day off from school. They chant when prompted. The enthusiasm is a bit like the anti-American graffiti on public walls — it hasn’t been painted over, but it’s fading.”

He adds that Iranians don’t seem to see it as a big deal.

“Some Iranians downplayed the revolutionary mantra’s importance; others insisted it still has strong symbolic merit,” he writes. “But all of them — particularly senior Iranian officials educated in the United States — seemed befuddled about why it would ever impact the fate of the nuclear deal.”

Why, indeed? Because from what little we know about the Iran deal, there’s a whole lot of “trust” but virtually no real “verify” to the agreement. In fact, any verification that Iran is living up to its end of the deal will be carried out by the United Nation’s toothless and prevaricating International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), according to a secret side deal Iran worked out with the U.N.

And then there’s Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. He calls the shots. And he’s very clear in his intentions.

When chants of “death to American” rang out during a speech he gave in March, he heartily agreed.

“Of course, yes, death to America, because America is the original source of this pressure,” he responded.

We’re not supposed to believe that. But we are supposed to take, at face value, Iran’s claim that it doesn’t even want nuclear weapons.

“As you all know, Iran says it doesn’t want a nuclear weapon, and that is a very welcome statement that the Supreme Leader has, in fact, incorporated into a fatwa,” Kerry said in March. “And we have great respect — great respect — for the religious importance of a fatwa.”

So which is it? That’s a fair question to ask, particularly now.