Iran has doubled the number of advanced centrifuges it is operating, the head of the country’s nuclear program announced on Monday. This will allow the Iranians to produce enriched uranium at 10 times the speed permitted by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iran nuclear deal.

A simplistic analysis would cast this as a move toward nuclear armament, but that interpretation is shortsighted and dangerous. It misses the broader context of months of escalating Iranian provocations on all fronts, and in doing so, pushes us closer to unnecessary and catastrophic conflict.