Unclear weapons

It is a strange sentence to read at a time when global cooperation is sparse, which makes it all the more important: Germany, France, Britain and the United States now stand united against Iran in an attempt to force its immediate disclosure of possible undeclared nuclear material and nuclear-related activities.

Friday’s urgent statement by the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear weapons watchdog, comes after Tehran repeatedly blocked inspectors and “sanitized” a site they sought to visit starting last summer.

Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. can continue to squabble over the wisdom of President Obama’s and European allies’ initial deal with Iran; we, in rare agreement with one Donald Trump, thought it naive and dangerous. They can continue to dispute the strategic intelligence of withdrawing from that deal, as Trump has; we think the administration, with no alternative but endlessly escalating sanctions and, perhaps, military action, is effectively encouraging Iranian defiance.

No matter where one stands on those two questions, the world must now unite against a fanatical regime controlled by mullahs who sponsor terrorism throughout the world and who are committed to Israel’s extinction, who are now flouting international inspectors in the most consequential way imaginable.

It is time for countries that comprise what was once as the free world to focus on isolating Iran, leaving no doubt about what a grave mistake it would be to continue down the nuclear road. This is the path to isolation, impoverishment and conflict. Turn around.