There is no shortage of US officials making broad statements accusing the Iranian government of attempting to develop a nuclear weapon, but after last week’s International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran yielded no interesting allegations to latch onto, US Ambassador to the IAEA Gregory Schulte has tried to novel strategy of accusing Iran of something it is known to be doing and then speculating about the future.

Schulte does not dispute that Iran’s well-known uranium enrichment program may well be, as the IAEA has repeatedly certified, for civilian purposes. But the ambassador thinks it is entirely “plausible” that a scenario might arise at some unknown future date where Iran might use that enrichment program to attempt to produce a nuclear weapon.