But first things first. Netanyahu’s cartoon stunt was strange but effective. With a diagram that could have been drawn by Wile E. Coyote, Netanyahu accurately summed up the threat and garnered front page photos in nearly every major world newspaper. In order for Iran to build a bomb, he said, it first had to go through three stages of uranium production:

The first stage: they have to enrich enough of low enriched uranium (3 to 5 percent enriched uranium).

The second stage: they have to enrich enough medium enriched uranium (20 percent).

And the third and final stage: they have to enrich enough high enriched uranium for the first bomb (90 percent).

Netanyahu warned that we had to draw a red line, which he dramatically did on his cartoon bomb, in between the final and second stages. We could not allow Iran to get to the point “where it’s a few months way or a few weeks away from amassing enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon.”

The reason is that 20 percent uranium can be fed back into Iran’s centrifuges and rapidly turned into bomb-grade. One of America’s leading experts on Iran’s nuclear program, Greg Thielman of the Arms Control Association, explained in 2012: "By the time Iran acquires approximately 225 kilograms of uranium gas … enriched to this level, it would be within one month of being able to further enrich to the 90 percent required for producing the metallic core of a nuclear warhead—assuming it takes 25 kilograms of material for one bomb."

When Netanyahu spoke, Iran had roughly 190 kilograms of medium enriched uranium and was making more every week. “That’s why I speak today with such a sense of urgency,” he said, “And why everyone should have a sense of urgency.” He predicted Iran would cross his red line by the summer of 2013.

It did not. When Hassan Rouhani became president of Iran in June 2013, he stopped expanding Iran’s uranium enrichment capability. The interim deal the U.S. and other nations secured with Iran last November rolled it back, directly addressing Netanyahu’s main fear. Iran agreed not only to stop enriching uranium to 20 percent, but to get rid of all it had made.

That goal has now been effectively reached. The IAEA report last week confirms that Iran cut its stock of medium enriched uranium by three-quarters. It has completely diluted half its stock down to low enriched uranium, and it has converted half of the remaining amount into reactor fuel, all ahead of schedule. It would be extraordinarily difficult and time-consuming to reverse these processes.

In short, Netanyahu’s bomb has been drained. His red line has been implemented. Even if Iran were to break the deal today, it would take it many months to make enough uranium for one bomb, and the world would see them doing it. Nor is there any indication that Iran is about to break off negotiations. In fact, the prospect that negotiators can work out a final agreement “now may be better than 50-50,” said David Petraeus, former CIA director and former U.S. Central Command commander, “which is not something we would have said even a few weeks ago, much less months ago.” According to Think Progress, Petraeus said at a talk at Harvard University, “I’m actually starting to believe that an agreement is possible and it could be that it’s possible before this particular six-month deadline expires,” referring to the target of concluding an agreement by July 20.