05/09/03: (Globe and Mail) Washington — U.S. President George W. Bush shifted targets yesterday, saying that Iran must be stopped from developing nuclear warheads.

"One of the things we must do is work together to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," the President said. He made the statement only weeks after the United States waged a war to topple the Iraqi regime, and in the midst of a standoff with North Korea — another "axis of evil," terrorist-supporting, rogue state — over its nuclear-weapons program.

The President delivered his remarks after foreign leaders from the "coalition of the willing," which backed Mr. Bush in his war against Iraq, paraded through Washington this week.

"I've always expressed my concerns that the Iranians may be developing a nuclear [weapons] program," Mr. Bush said at an Oval Office meeting with the Emir of Qatar, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.

The Bush administration is pushing hard to have Tehran declared in violation of the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty by the International Atomic Energy Agency, a move opposed by Russia, the main nuclear supplier to the Islamic theocracy.

The intensified rhetoric against Tehran seems to indicate that the Bush administration is ready for another confrontation over the intentions of what it regards as a rogue state bent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

"Our concern is about the potential acquisition of nuclear weapons by a state that's a known supporter of terrorism," U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said yesterday. "It's been something that the President talked about. It's why he talked about the axis of evil. We all understand this to be one of the most dangerous combinations of our age," he added.

Iran insists its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes, although that echoes the claims of other nations, such as India and Pakistan, which secretly developed nuclear weapons under the guise of pursuing reliable electricity supplies.

Skeptics point out that Iran, with some of the world's largest oil and natural-gas reserves, hardly needs nuclear reactors to generate electricity.

"We completely reject Iran's claim that it's doing this for peaceful purposes," Mr. Boucher said, adding that Iran is building an uranium-enrichment plant and a heavy-water plant. Enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium, which can be recovered from a heavy-water reactor, can be used to build nuclear warheads.

"There's no economic justification for a state that's rich in oil and gas, like Iran, to build hugely expensive nuclear fuel-cycle facilities," Mr. Boucher said. "Iran flares off more gas annually than the equivalent energy its desired reactors would produce."

The Bush administration says that Tehran tried to conceal its reactor programs, acknowledging them only after opposition groups made them public.

Washington is pressing other nations on the IAEA board to declare Iran in violation of the Non-proliferation Treaty, a move that could shift the issue to the United Nations Security Council.

Britain, Mr. Bush's strongest backer in the war against Iraq, also supports Washington's position on Iran's nuclear ambitions. Other members of the 35-nation IAEA board — including Canada, France, Germany and Russia, which all opposed Mr. Bush's decision to wage war to topple Saddam Hussein's regime — have not indicated a position.

The IAEA is due to report on its assessment of Iran's nuclear program next month.

"We'll wait and see what it says," Mr. Bush said yesterday.

The White House is already grappling with its policy toward Tehran. Iran and the United States have been at loggerheads for more than two decades, since the Iranian revolution and the subsequent 444-day hostage drama, when the U.S. embassy was overrun in Tehran and diplomats seized. There have been glimmers of co-operation in recent years, especially during the U.S.-led war to oust the Taliban from power in Afghanistan in 2001.

Iran and the United States are jockeying for influence in Iraq, with Tehran backing Shia radicals seeking an Islamic government, and Washington struggling to nurture a multiethnic federal democracy.

As for relations with Tehran, the Bush administration remains locked in an internal debate over whether to overtly support Iranian student protesters inside the country in the hope that they will eventually topple the governing mullahs or attempt to engage the so-called moderates who are promising reform.