The real question, is why did the administration leak the story, and why now?
The latest round of multi-lateral talks on Iran's nuclear program just concluded a few days ago in Baghdad. I think they're trying to send the message to Iran that they will never be able to have a clandestine nuclear weapons program. The world is going to know about it. So if a nuclear power option is on the table for Iran this might give them a little extra motivation to accept all international regulations/inspections as a precondition. What are they actually going to be able to hide? Not much apparently.
The other goal here is to make Iran's position that they only want nuclear power, not nuclear weapons, even more difficult to accept. They are enduring sanctions and refusing to accept all of the regulations/inspections for what purpose exactly? They could have had nuclear power years ago if they were willing to accept these conditions. The longer they hide behind 'nuclear power only' the harder it is to believe. At some crucial point I have no doubt we'll be leaking detailed information about their weapons program. When that happens Iran will have to probably admit they do want nuclear weapons and from there the war question pretty much resolves itself.
Great point. After reading the article, I completely forgot that Iran was still claiming that they didn't have a weapons program. This now proves that claim is complete nonsense and now that this is public, the US can show the UN security council and infinite amount of data that shows Iran has a weapons program.
The latest round of multi-lateral talks on Iran's nuclear program just concluded a few days ago in Baghdad. I think they're trying to send the message to Iran that they will never be able to have a clandestine nuclear weapons program. The world is going to know about it. So if a nuclear power option is on the table for Iran this might give them a little extra motivation to accept all international regulations/inspections as a precondition. What are they actually going to be able to hide? Not much apparently.
The other goal here is to make Iran's position that they only want nuclear power, not nuclear weapons, even more difficult to accept. They are enduring sanctions and refusing to accept all of the regulations/inspections for what purpose exactly? They could have had nuclear power years ago if they were willing to accept these conditions. The longer they hide behind 'nuclear power only' the harder it is to believe. At some crucial point I have no doubt we'll be leaking detailed information about their weapons program. When that happens Iran will have to probably admit they do want nuclear weapons and from there the war question pretty much resolves itself.