By ERIC BAZAIL-EIMIL, CONNOR O'BRIEN and FELICIA SCHWARTZ 

POLITICO

The Trump administration isn’t shying away from discussing the technical details of its desired nuclear deal with Tehran. But top officials are causing some confusion about where exactly the White House stands on enrichment.

On Wednesday, Vice President JD VANCE said Iran can have a civil nuclear program and implied the U.S. could allow Tehran to enrich uranium.

“You can’t have the kind of enrichment program that allows you to get to a nuclear weapon, and that’s where we draw the line,” Vance said.

But that’s a bit different from comments by Secretary of State MARCO RUBIOlast week that Tehran “has to walk away” from enrichment and must import enriched uranium for its nuclear power program. A central Republican attack on the Obama-era nuclear deal was that President BARACK OBAMA’s negotiating team gave in on enrichment and allowed Tehran to enrich uranium in the final deal, though only to 3.67 percent.

It seems the matter is still up for debate. President DONALD TRUMP added Wednesday, “We haven’t made that decision yet,” as to whether Iran could enrich uranium for a civil nuclear program.

Meanwhile, Trump has signaled he wants to go after Iran’s centrifuges. In an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt on Wednesday, he threatened to bomb Iran if a deal isn’t reached, saying, “There are only two alternatives there: Blow them up nicely or blow them up viciously.”

BEHNAM BEN TALEBLU, who leads Iran work at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank in Washington, draws a distinction between the “political end-state” Trump has outlined and the technical details about how to achieve that. Trump, he argued, has been clear in his desire to prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, while leaving the technical details vague.

“The people around him now are trying to fill in the technical contours, and sometimes that looks like it could go one way. Sometimes it looks like it can go another way,” Ben Taleblu said. “But I would say the political logic of this is the president is keeping his options open.”

There are strategic advantages to that ambiguity, says JON ALTERMAN, a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington. But it also “raises the question of whether the administration has a vigorous process in place to evaluate the various proposals being put forward by an Iranian negotiating team with decades of experience,” Alterman argued.

The hope in some GOP corners is that the final deal will move toward dismantling the enrichment program and pushing Iran to only import enriched uranium. On Capitol Hill today, Sens. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-S.C.) and TOM COTTON (R-Ark.) argued that Iran should only be granted a “123 agreement” with the United States once its nuclear program is deterred (“123 agreements” refer to section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which allows the U.S. to collaborate with other countries on peaceful nuclear projects).

Graham in particular warned that without dismantlement, Iran could remain in a position to get a nuclear weapon.

“I’m okay with Iran having peaceful nuclear power. I’m okay with them building new nuclear power plants. As long as they don’t enrich that. The nuclear fuel supply comes from outside of Iran. It will be completely controlled,” Graham said. “Anything short of that would be a bad deal. Anything short of that, I think, would ensure over time they get a nuclear weapon.”