Iran Nuclear Showdown

Iran Nuclear Showdown

By Katie Brinn

You’ve probably been hearing a lot lately about the battle between the White House and Congress over Iran’s nuclear program. It could be the final act of an ongoing drama that's had all the makings of a Bond film.

In 2009, the United States revealed a big secret: Iran was building a covert nuclear plant … inside a mountain.

The Iranian government claimed that the facility was used to make electricity and that it had nothing to do with weapons, but the United States wasn’t so sure. Still, U.S. officials reassured the American people, it could be up to five years before Iran would be capable of building a bomb.

Well, now those five years are up, and the United States and its allies still haven’t been able to find a solution to the Iran nuclear crisis.

But not for lack of trying.

Since 2006, the United States, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and Germany have been working together to negotiate with Iran. Iranians insist that their program is peaceful and that they have the right to keep their nuclear plants up and running. But many Western countries don’t trust Iran’s government, and they don’t want to risk leaving dangerous chemicals in its hands.

After Iran’s current president, Hassan Rouhani, was elected in 2013, it began to look as if there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Rouhani was motivated to bring the debate to a peaceful end, and he made a few concessions, like ceasing the production of dangerous chemicals and diluting the ones Iran already had. The U.S. and its allies were optimistic that they could resolve the nuclear crisis without heading into another war, and they set a deadline of November 2014 to find a permanent solution.

But that deadline came and went without a deal emerging.

So what happens next, and how worried should you be?

To find out, check out the video above, so when it comes to the showdown over Iran’s nuclear program, at least you can say, “Now I get it.”