Why This Obsession With Iran?

Thus did supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declare in February that Iran’s possession of atomic weapons would be a mortal sin against Allah.

It is also the unanimous judgment of the U.S. intelligence community, declared in 2007 and affirmed in 2011, that Iran has abandoned any program to build nuclear weapons.

Is the ayatollah lying? Is the entire U.S. intel community wrong?

Iran’s plants at Natanz, where uranium is enriched to 5%, and at Fordow, where it is enriched to 20% — both below weapons grade — are under constant U.N. monitoring. Iran has offered to surrender its 20% uranium and cease enriching to that level, if the West will provide isotopes for its nuclear medicine and lift some of the more onerous sanctions.

No deal, says the United States. Iran must give up enrichment entirely and indefinitely.

This is the sticking point in the negotiations. Iran contends that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, she has the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. On this, the Iranian people stand behind their government.