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Albright: Next U.S. President Must Deal Quickly with Iran Nuclear Program

Council on Foreign Relations

Interviewee: David Albright, President, Institute for Science and International Security
Interviewer: Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor

March 3, 2008

David Albright, a well-known expert on Iran’s nuclear program, says Iran seems determined to press ahead with its uranium-enrichment program, despite continued pressure from the UN Security Council to suspend its work. The latest report from the UN’s nuclear agency, the IAEA, indicates Iran is pressing ahead with its program. Albright doubts the Bush administration can come up with a diplomatic formula to halt Iran, and the new U.S. president “is going to face an Iran with a growing nuclear capability, and will have to move quickly, thinking more creatively and broadly about how to put together a diplomatic strategy.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] issued its latest report on Iran’s nuclear situation last week. What does it tell us, now, about where Iran is standing in relation to developing the capacity to build nuclear weapons if the Iranians choose to do so?

The report says (PDF) that Iran is moving relatively slowly on enriching uranium. Uranium is being enriched in three thousand of the so-called P1 centrifuges that are at the underground Natanz enrichment plant. But the report also talks about a new generation of centrifuges, called a “modified P2,” that is now being tested at the Natanz pilot plant. It’s about two and a half times more powerful than the P1 centrifuge and is generally a better centrifuge. The P1 was produced and used in Pakistan [therefore the letter “P”]. Pakistanis, as quickly as possible, moved to the P2. So Iran is following the natural path, which is to try to move beyond the P1 and get to a next-generation machine.

Did Iran buy these from Pakistan? Or did they make them themselves?

Iran bought the designs from Pakistan for the P2, but it’s not building an exact replica of the P2.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2008 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.