The United States would insist on “zero enrichment for Iran,” Brian H. Hook, the State Department’s special envoy for Iran, told a small group of reporters. That would assure Tehran could produce no new nuclear material, and thus never get closer to building a weapon than it is now. It was a telling moment in a strange, circular week of mutual threats and missed signals between bitter adversaries. Every requirement, every concession in the deal, was measured against how it would affect that timeline. And by all accounts, that deal was working before Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from it in May 2018, calling it a “disaster.”

Source: New York Times May 17, 2019 19:52 UTC