Blocking All Paths to an Iranian Bomb : How the West Can Avoid a Nuclear Maginot Line

French Minister of War Andre Maginot became famous among military strategists for his fixation on a single route of attack that led to fatal neglect of alternatives. Seeking to defeat a German invasion along the primary East-West axis, Maginot constructed an impregnable line of fortifications in the 1930s that succeeded in preventing the attack he most feared. But when German panzers outflanked that line and rolled through Belgium in 1940, their attack from the rear led to France’s surrender in just six weeks. In concentrating so much of their mindshare on imposing constraints on Iran’s known nuclear facilities at Natanz, Fordow, and Arak, are the US and its five negotiating partners at risk of creating a nuclear Maginot line?