Illustration: Yaoting Wang for Bloomberg
The US Is Showing Iran Why It Needs a Nuclear Weapon
Military strikes, waning trust in diplomacy and the respect granted to nuclear powers are sharpening Tehran’s incentive to seek a bomb.
Striding to a podium in Islamabad after 21 hours of negotiations with Iran, US Vice President JD Vance took a deep breath before declaring that talks had broken down because the Islamic Republic refused to rule out ever obtaining a nuclear bomb.
“The simple question is, do we see a fundamental commitment of will for the Iranians not to develop a nuclear weapon — not just now, not just two years from now, but for the long term?” Vance told bleary-eyed reporters shortly after dawn on April 12. “We haven’t seen that yet.”