The Iranian government this week published its first detailed study of how long it estimates it would take its scientists and engineers to assemble a nuclear weapon, saying that with its current infrastructure, “the required time span is in years.” Iran described the estimate as entirely hypothetical, and it was clearly intended to allay fears that Iran has the ability to race for a bomb. Not surprisingly, American officials immediately disputed the conclusions, which contradicted both classified assessments by the United States government and many estimates by outside experts. But the very fact that Iran’s nuclear energy establishment wrote the eight-page report, titled “How Long Would an Iranian ‘Breakout’ Really Take?” was itself notable. Until now, Iran’s public position has been that its program is entirely peaceful and that it has never studied what it would take to amass the fuel for a weapon, which is known […]