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Experts See Possible U.S. Policy Shift on Iran Nuclear Program
U.S. President George W. Bush signaled a possible shift in U.S. policy on Iran yesterday, potentially leaving open the door to a compromise with Tehran over its nuclear capability, experts told Reuters (see GSN, May 31). Iran is “not to be trusted when it comes to highly enriched uranium — or highly enriching uranium,” Bush said at a press conference. “Our policy is to prevent them from having the capacity to develop enriched uranium to the point where they’re able to make a nuclear weapon,” he said. Some experts interpreted that remark as allowing for the possibility that Iran could be permitted some limited nuclear capability short of the level of uranium enrichment needed to build a bomb. Bush may be “giving himself some wiggle room, preparing the ground for a compromise solution with Iran that would allow them to do part of the enrichment but well short of anything that could give them weapons capability,” said Joseph Cirincione, nonproliferation director at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Clearly you would prefer they (the Iranians) not do anything (in terms of the nuclear fuel cycle), but for the negotiations to work it has to be a win-win situation,” Cirincione said. White House spokesman Scott McClellan, however, said Bush’s comments should not be read as a switch in U.S. policy. “Our position hasn’t changed,” he said, and another senior administration official supported that view. “We’re against (the Iranians) acquiring the technology that would allow them to have a nuclear weapons program,” the official told Reuters (Adam Entous, Reuters, May 31).
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