Yet the problem for zero-boosters is that the lower you go, the trickier things get, argues Henry Sokolski of the Washington-based Non-proliferation Policy Education Centre.
The head of the Non-proliferation Policy Education Centre in Washington, a vocal critic of the Agreed Framework, has warned that even when the new reactors are completed they may not be tamper-proof.
Both men said they consider nuclear proliferation to be the most important foreign-policy issue.
"One has to assume that Iran either has the P-2 centrifuge from North Korea, or could get it very easily, " said Simon Henderson, a proliferation expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
WSJ: North Korea Nuclear Find Raises Fears It Will Share With Iran
Whether such a policy materially advances the cause of non-proliferation appears, frankly, to be a secondary consideration.
Sidney Drell says there are many areas of policy where all nations committed to non-proliferation should be able to agree.
From 1990-2005, Ms. Harrington served at the U.S. Department of State as an expert on nonproliferation and cooperative threat reduction and was responsible for developing policy and implementing programs aimed at preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and missile expertise in Russia and Eurasia.
On November 14, 1994, by Executive Order 12938, the President declared a national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States posed by the proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons (weapons of mass destruction) and the means of delivering such weapons.
The order invoked the authority, inter alia, of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701-1706) and declared a national emergency to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by the risk of nuclear proliferation created by the accumulation of a large volume of weapons-usable fissile material in the territory of the Russian Federation.
应用推荐