The Global Story: How to stop Iran from building a nuclear weapon

**Tristan Redmond** (0:00)
Hey there, I'm Tristan Redmond, one of the hosts of the Global Story Podcast from the BBC.
Our show tells you one story every day where the world and America meet. And as a bonus for your feed, we're bringing you one of our best episodes of the week. After months of fighting, this is the week that the US and Iran signed a deal aimed at ending the war. And the deal stipulates that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. But we still had a lot of questions about how you even enforce that.
So my co-host, Asma Khaled, called up an expert. Someone who worked in Iraq investigating the country's nuclear weapons program under Saddam Hussein. If you liked this episode, then we also had a great in-depth conversation with the BBC's chief international correspondent, Lise Doucette, about who won the war. You can find that in our feed and a lot more by searching the Global Story wherever you listen. Here's the show. Enjoy.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:56)
Mr. President, please, just one question for French TV and the Iran deal.
Did you sign the deal? Did you sign the MOU?

**Donald Trump** (1:06)
It's signed.

**Asma Khalid** (1:11)
On Wednesday at the Palace of Versailles near Paris, President Trump signed a 14-point memorandum of understanding to end the war with Iran. Now this deal is just a first start. There's now a 60-day clock to reach a final agreement, and officials from the US and Iran are planning to meet soon in Switzerland for initial talks. But at a press conference on Wednesday, President Trump sounded triumphant.

**Donald Trump** (1:37)
We reached an agreement with Iran that achieves everything we set out to accomplish, everything and much more, ending the current conflict, reopening the Strait of Hormuz and preventing Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon.
That's what it was all about. That was about 99 percent. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

**Asma Khalid** (2:01)
And while the deal, according to the US, lays out that Iran will not procure or develop a nuclear weapon, there are still a lot of unanswered questions about the nuclear issue. And that's before you even consider the deep skepticism from all sides as to whether a deal is realistic. How do you even go about checking that everyone's actually playing by the rules they've signed up to?
From the BBC, I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, DC. And today on The Global Story, we speak with a former weapons inspector about how this all might work.

**David Albright** (2:39)
My name is David Albright. I'm president of the Institute for Science and International Security. And in DC terms, a think tank, and as a result of world events, have spent a lot of the last 20 years looking at the Iran nuclear program.

**Asma Khalid** (2:54)
I just want to say, David, welcome to The Global Story. Thank you for joining us.

**David Albright** (2:59)
Good to be here.

**Asma Khalid** (3:00)
Prior to this world you've had in the think tank world, as you say, here in Washington, DC, you were also a UN inspector, is that correct, in the 1990s?

**David Albright** (3:10)
Yes, I was involved in the inspections in Iraq, and I think I was the only one picked from a non-governmental organization.

**Asma Khalid** (3:17)
David, before we dive into any of that, actually, I just want to start with, we heard President Trump this week say, again, that the United States would never let Iran have a nuclear weapon. He says that they have agreed to that, that is what the Trump administration is saying. You're a former weapons inspector.
When you hear that, what's your reaction?

**David Albright** (3:42)
Well, my initial reaction is that very happy they have a deal.

**Asma Khalid** (3:47)
Okay.

**David Albright** (3:49)
It's a working document. It's more of a political agreement than a technical agreement. I think that it does open up a possibility that the Middle East can change fundamentally.
But a verification of that is going to be a principle point, and that can be a rough road.

**Asma Khalid** (4:06)
I want to talk about what's going on right now in Iran, and what we might expect in terms of an effort to monitor Iran's nuclear program moving forward.
But first, David, you were somebody who monitored this all with the United Nations. Can you just explain to me what nuclear inspectors are for? I imagine a lot of listeners are unfamiliar with this as a job. Do nuclear inspectors inspect all countries?

**David Albright** (4:31)
Most of the inspection effort is centered on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, ratified in 1970, that commits countries not to build nuclear weapons.
And it offers these countries a great deal. Your neighbors won't have nuclear weapons. You can live in a safer environment because they don't have them.