In April Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel had spirited thousands of documents out of a secret Iranian nuclear archive. Having examined some of these files and compared them with publicly available information about the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, David Albright testified before Congress last week about what has been learned, about the White House’s decision to leave the 2015 nuclear deal, and about the possibility of the U.S. and Europe cooperating to reimpose sanctions:

These revelations highlight the fundamental mistake made by the [nuclear-deal] negotiators in not settling the issue of Iran’s past and possibly ongoing nuclear-weapons program prior to the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (or JCPOA, as the agreement is formally known) in January 2016. Because this issue is so fundamental to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, the decision to sweep it under the carpet served not only to weaken the JCPOA but, with this new information, serves to call into question its very purpose. The new information makes the [JCPOA’s sunset clauses, which allow Iran to resume prohibited nuclear activities beginning in 2022] far deadlier, as the documents show that Iran’s nuclear-weapons program is both more organized and more advanced than previously thought, allowing a faster dash to a bomb. . . .

According to the Israelis, this archive was not gathering dust but was part of an ongoing stewardship program meant to enable Iran to reincarnate its nuclear-weapons program on short order. . . . In short, Iran is maintaining and nurturing a reconstitution kit ready for use to build nuclear weapons. The conditions of the existence of this archive and the extent of the information in it suggest that Iran has been violating the JCPOA and the spirit of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Under the JCPOA, Iran agreed that “under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop, or acquire nuclear weapons.” . . .

The new information makes it more urgent to fix the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections in Iran, even if the JCPOA falters. Iran is still a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and its comprehensive-safeguards agreement requires cooperation with the IAEA in determining whether its program is purely peaceful. Iran has a binding legal obligation to grant the IAEA inspectors access to sites, materials, equipment, documents, and personnel to resolve outstanding questions about the military dimensions of its past nuclear activities. The IAEA has an obligation to investigate completely the personnel, sites, equipment, and activities described in the nuclear archive discovered by Israel, including gaining access to military sites. If Iran refuses, then it is in violation of its . . . obligations.

To Peter Berkowitz, the rot in American institutions of higher learning exposed by Tuesday’s hearings resembles a disease that in its early stages was easy to cure but difficult to diagnose, and now is so advanced that it is easy to diagnose but difficult to cure. Recent analyses of these problems have now at last made it to the pages of the New York Times but are, he writes, “tardy by several decades,” and their suggested remedies woefully inadequate:

They fail to identify the chief problem. They ignore the principal obstacles to reform. They propose reforms that provide the equivalent of band-aids for gaping wounds and shattered limbs. And they overlook the mainstream media’s complicity in largely ignoring, downplaying, or dismissing repeated warnings extending back a quarter century and more—largely, but not exclusively, from conservatives—that our universities undermine the public interest by attacking free speech, eviscerating due process, and hollowing out and politicizing the curriculum.

The remedy, Berkowitz argues, would be turning universities into places that cultivate, encourage, and teach freedom of thought and speech. But doing so seems unlikely:

Having undermined respect for others and the art of listening by presiding over—or silently acquiescing in—the curtailment of dissenting speech for more than a generation, the current crop of administrators and professors seems ill-suited to fashion and implement free-speech training. Moreover, free speech is best learned not by didactic lectures and seminars but by practicing it in the reasoned consideration of competing ideas with those capable of challenging one’s assumptions and arguments. But where are the professors who can lead such conversations? Which faculty members remain capable of understanding their side of the argument because they understand the other side?