WASHINGTON, June 7 -- The question was simple enough: what happens to Iran's uranium stockpile if negotiations collapse? Donald Trump's answer, delivered to NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday, stripped the issue of any diplomatic ambiguity. The United States, he said, would take it either way.

"If we make a deal that now we're friendly, we'll all go together," Trump said in the interview, taped on June 5 at a farm in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and broadcast Sunday. "Now, if we don't make a deal, then we're going to take them out militarily very harshly. And we'll wait till we do that before we go."

The formulation was notable for what it excluded: a scenario in which the uranium stays in Iranian hands. Whether through a negotiated handover ...