Iran on Nuclear Precipice as Oversight Dwindles

Iran’s dangerous belief in its deterrent edge over the United States and Israel, which is painfully apparent in Tehran’s unrequited proxy attacks and other pressures against both countries since October 7, is compounded by its expanding capacity to produce a survivable arsenal’s worth of weapons-grade uranium in short order, and by the outside world’s growing uncertainty about how close it is to achieving all the elements of a nuclear weapon.

Having just missed a great chance to revive serious international pushback on Iran’s illegal activities, and with Tehran having just flipped the most credible obstacle to its continued nuclear aggression – Israel’s military readiness – on its head by bogging Israeli forces down in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon, the Biden administration and Congress must fill this now-yawning gap by sharpening U.S. redlines, tying them and America’s regional force buildup explicitly to Iran’s nuclear program, and closing ranks with their European partners to begin undoing nearly a decade of unmerited legitimization and encouragement of Iran’s approach to the nuclear weapons threshold.