IranWith Iran, that question has for over decades been the nuclear weapons file. But the confrontation hardened after 2005, as Iran resumed nuclear energy-related uranium-conversion activity and the dispute moved towards the UN Security Council. Iran’s leadership said that it was uninterested in nuclear weapons but was ignored. The framing of Iran’s nuclear energy programme as a nuclear proliferation issue was politically convenient for Washington. It reduced a broad struggle over Israel’s nuclear weapons programme, US military bases, sanctions and maritime control to a test of Iranian compliance.