As President Barack Obama is set to address the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on Sunday, policymakers around the world will be paying close attention to how he phrases his administration’s policy toward Iran’s nuclear development. In recent days and months, some senior administration officials have a drawn a “red line” against Iranian “development of a nuclear weapon,” while others have stated the intention is to prevent Iran achieving “nuclear weapons capability.” The difference in language is significant, so the confusion is potentially dangerous. The more provable and preventable nuclear threshold is Iranian weapons capability. 

On April 5, 2010 President Obama made an important distinction, acknowledging that Iran’s “current course… would provide them with nuclear weapons capabilities.” When pressed whether he “could live with a nuclear-capable Iran,” but not “a nuclear weapons state in Iran,” Obama replied that he was “not going to parse that right now.” Other senior officials have parsed it but without resolution.