WASHINGTON, March 23 (Reuters) - Inflation is the greater risk facing the U.S. economy right now with the unemployment rate remaining fairly stable, Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said on Monday, though a quick resolution of the Iran conflict could still leave the Fed poised to cut rates later this year. 

With high gas prices threatening to influence consumer expectations, "at the moment I think inflation has got to be a little ahead of employment" as a Fed priority, Goolsbee said on CNBC's Squawk Box. "To have already been at an inflation rate that was uncomfortably high...and now to add something that might be a lasting gasoline price shock, this is an intense moment and we have to hope that this does not prove to be a lasting impact on the economy."