How the US can resolve the Iran problem

President Donald Trump said on Monday that he will “solve the Iran problem” and that “it’s almost an easy one.”

- Bret Stephens

What is “the Iran problem”? Mr. Trump seems to think it’s Iran’s efforts to obtain nuclear weapons, which, he has said, “they can’t have.” Iran has enriched uranium to 60% purity — close to weapons grade — and “might be able to enrich enough uranium for five fission weapons within about one week and enough for eight weapons in less than two weeks,” according to the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control.

Steven Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s emissary, said earlier this month that the administration’s red line was “weaponisation” of Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Incredibly, that conceded more to Iran than Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal. The one Mr. Trump correctly cancelled as his first term for being too weak. After meeting with Iran’s foreign minister over the weekend, Mr. Witkoff appeared to walk back his original suggestion, posting on the social platform X on Tuesday that Iran must “eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponisation programme”.

Iran has been playing Western diplomats for fools for decades — including through Mr. Obama’s much-ballyhooed Iran deal. Iran also has a richly documented word of cheating on its agreements, a fact that was exposed by Israel when it stole the regime’s nuclear secrets from a warehouse in 2018.