Did you hear about the nun who broke into the nuclear storage facility? This sounds like the setup to a joke, but in reality, a nun and two accomplices, including one from Minnesota, broke into a nuclear storage facility in 2012. 

 

The group broke into the “Fort Knox of uranium” in Tennessee, where they simply hung anti-nuclear banners, prayed and spray painted messages. Last week, the group was resentenced to “time served,” and they were accordingly released from prison. Though the story is bizarre, I think it brings up an important point about the Iran nuclear deal. 

 

I support the Iranian nuclear deal for a variety of reasons. Foremost among them, I think an Iran with unregulated nuclear programs would pose a threat to public safety for reasons the nun’s group illustrated. 

 

It’s not necessarily that the Iranian government poses a threat to the United States, but having nuclear materials in such an unstable region is a disaster waiting to happen. A group could easily take possession of nuclear materials and wreak unfathomable havoc. If three Catholics — one of them a nun in her eighties — can break into a U.S. nuclear facility, it seems all too possible that at least one well-funded sectarian terrorist group could get its hands on Iranian nuclear materials. 

 

The Iran deal represents unprecedented regulation for Iran’s nuclear program, and it is a huge step toward non-proliferation in the Middle East. Amid hardliner fear-mongering, the Iran deal represents a promising step that sets up the U.S. and Iran for a future of increasingly friendly interactions.