Europeans pressured to abandon Iran

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of the U.S. are both ramping up pressure on European allies to drop their commitments to the abandoned Iran nuclear deal of 2015.

Mr. Netanyahu said on Thursday that the International Atomic Energy Agency had confirmed his allegation that Iran had maintained a secret nuclear site, in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. And Mr. Pompeo, visiting Germany hours earlier, accused Iran of “nuclear extortion” by having accelerated its ability to develop a nuclear weapon in a shortened time frame.

Recap: Iran said this week that it had increased its supply of advanced centrifuges and had reactivated a much larger number of old centrifuges that had been idle, stepping up its ability to produce nuclear material to make a bomb.

Reality: Experts say that Iran has not yet come near the level of uranium enrichment needed for a weapon, but some Western analysts say that if it attempted a rush to develop a nuclear bomb, the country could accomplish it in less than a year.