The Obama administration has insisted for years that Iran would never be allowed to build a nuclear weapon. But news reports coming out of international nuclear talks in Geneva indicated the administration was considering a deal with so few restrictions on uranium enrichment that it would allow Iran to do just that in the final years of the agreement.

Secretary of State John Kerry, when questioned this week by lawmakers, denied the reports, and repeated the administration’s insistence that any deal it signed would “forever” cut off Iran from a path to a nuclear weapon.