Iran becoming a nuclear threshold state

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid told US President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Tuesday that Iran is “becoming a nuclear threshold state.”

The unusually stark wording was used by Lapid during a meeting with Jake Sullivan in Washington and was reiterated by the foreign minister in a later sit-down with a delegation of Congressional leaders headed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The message built on the one delivered by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in his speech to the UN General Assembly last month, when Bennett warned that the Iranian nuclear program is at “a watershed moment.”

The US has yet to publicly entertain alternative options to the JCPOA in detail, insisting that it is still pursuing the diplomatic path to blocking Iran’s nuclear ambitions.