In a formal report on Monday, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), made clear—without saying it outright—that the Islamic Republic had deliberately misled the agency about its ongoing nuclear activities. Richard Goldberg explains what this means with regard to the White House’s hopes of reviving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the 2015 agreement with Tehran is formally known:

These revelations undermine the very core of the JCPOA and will pose serious challenges to any attempt to resurrect the agreement. First, it’s clear now that Iran deceived the IAEA in 2015 and never provided a complete or truthful accounting of its undeclared nuclear activities. . . . Second, critical deficiencies in the JCPOA’s inspection regime are on full display. . . . Most concerning, Iran keeps its military facilities, [including those where nuclear research is taking place], off-limits to IAEA inspections—leaving a gaping hole in its verification regime.

Third, the IAEA is pulling on a thread that opened while America remained a participant in the JCPOA. Unlike other nuclear misconduct topping the news, including the enrichment of uranium, Iran’s nuclear deceit is not a response to U.S. withdrawal from the deal [in 2018] or imposition of sanctions—it is a fundamental breach of its nuclear obligations and commitments, including the nonproliferation treaty [it signed in 1968].

Papering over Iran’s breach of its most fundamental nuclear obligations in favor of the empty reassurances provided by a flawed nuclear agreement would be an enormous strategic mistake—not just for the new administration’s Iran policy but for other regimes watching across the world. To reward Iran with sanctions relief for concealing undeclared nuclear material and activities poses a far greater threat to the global nonproliferation regime than withdrawal from flawed agreements.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.