Behind the Urgent Nuclear Diplomacy: A Sense That Iranians Will Get the Bomb

WASHINGTON, Feb. 5 — Hours after the United States and Europe prevailed in a contest over officially reporting Iran's history of clandestine nuclear activity to the United Nations Security Council, President Bush issued a statement on Saturday from his ranch, saying that the overwhelming vote showed "the world will not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons."

But even some of Mr. Bush's own advisers say that may prove an overstatement. Behind the diplomatic maneuvering, many of the diplomats and nuclear experts involved in the West's effort believe that stopping the program cold is highly unlikely, and probably impossible. They acknowledge that a more realistic goal now is to delay the day that Iran joins the nuclear club.

"Look, the Pakistanis and the North Koreans got there, and they didn't have Iran's money or the engineering expertise," said one senior official who is instrumental in putting together the American strategy. "Sooner or later, it's going to happen. Our job is to make sure it's later." By that time, he said, the hope is that a changed or different government is in power in Tehran.

In part, this is the newfound realism of an administration that has learned some hard lessons in Iraq, and is no longer quite so eager to talk about pre-empting what it regards as looming threats.

But the goal rises from a growing understanding of the damage wrought by the clandestine nuclear network of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear engineer who began supplying the Iranians with designs, prototypes and equipment in the late 1980's, beneath the radar of American intelligence agencies. By the time Dr. Khan and the Iranians split in the mid-1990's, apparently in a dispute over money and advanced technology, Iran was already well advanced on the learning curve.