Iran's nuclear weapons program is like Schrödinger's cat: It both does and doesn't exist at the same time.
Last week, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz told ABC that "Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. All options are on the table to ensure it does not have one. And that's all aspects of Iran's program. That's the missiles, the weaponization, the enrichment." But this week, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told the Senate that "Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader [Ali] Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003."
The seeming contradiction in the Trump administration's line is actually a fine-toothed distinction. Iran is currently enriching uranium up to 60 percent, according to a leaked report by United Nations nuclear inspectors. It's far above the 2 to 5 percent enrichment level used to fuel power plants, yet below the 90 percent necessary to build a bomb. As Gabbard said at the Tuesday hearing, "Iran's enriched uranium stockpile…is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons."
