Tag: Nuclear weapons

We are Kim’s kin too

I can’t even pretend to know something about North Korea, but it seems to me The Daily Beast has it right:  rather than being a sign of strength, Kim Jong Un’s purge and execution of his uncle reflects weakness and foreshadows instability.  The military is coming out on top, regime cadres will be running scared and Pyongyang will become more isolated.  Uncle Jang Song Thaek was a key liaison with the Chinese, which had been encouraging economic opening and discouraging nuclear adventurism.

This is a difficult situation for the rest of the world.  North Korea is a threat to regional stability either way:  Kim may gain full command and brandish nuclear weapons against his neighbors (and Washington, though no one thinks he has the capability to target the continental United States), hoping to be paid off in fuel and food.  The US has done that several times, but President Obama has sworn off the practice.  Or North Korea might collapse, sending refugees into China and the South and leaving behind nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction in the hands of who knows who. Read more

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Peace picks, December 9-13

D.C. is back in full-swing before the start of the holidays. Here are this week’s peace and conflict events:

1. Inaugural PeaceGame 2013 — Chart the Best Possible Peace for Syria

U.S. Institute of Peace

December 9 8:00am – December 10 12:30pm

Governments around the world regularly devote enormous resources to conducting “war games.”  On December 9 and 10, the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) and The FP Group (FP) will conduct the inaugural PeaceGame, with a focus on “the best possible peace for Syria.” With one game in the U.S. and another in the Middle East, the semi-annual PeaceGames will bring together the leading minds in national security policy, international affairs, academia, business, and media to “game” out how we can achieve peace in Syria. USIP and FP intend for the game to redefine how leaders think about conflict resolution and the possibility of peace.

The full event will be webcast live beginning at 9:00am ET on December 9, 2013 atwww.usip.org/webcasts. Join the conversation on Twitter with #PeaceGame.

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Peace picks, December 2-6

After a week of Thanksgiving festivities, here are this week’s top events:

1. CHP’s Vision for Turkey: An Address by Chairman Kılıçdaroğlu

Monday, December 2 | 11:30am – 1:00pm

Brookings Institution, Falk Auditorium, 1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW

REGISTER TO ATTEND

On December 2, the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings will host Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, chairman of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), for an address on Turkey, its foreign policy and its relations with the United States. In his remarks, Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu will offer CHP’s vision for the future of Turkey with a particular focus on Turkish democracy and economics. He will also reflect on Turkey’s role in its neighborhood and offer thoughts on its transatlantic relations.

Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu has served as the chair of the Republican People’s Party since May 2010. He was first elected in 2002 as a member of the Turkish Parliament for the Istanbul province. He was reelected as an MP in 2007 and served as CHP’s Group Vice President until declaring his candidacy for the leadership of the party. Prior to his political career, Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu served in numerous high-ranking positions in the Turkish Ministry of Finance and the Social Security Organization.

Senior Fellow Ted Piccone, acting vice president and director of Foreign Policy at Brookings, will introduce Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu. At the conclusion of his remarks, Brookings TUSIAD Senior Fellow Kemal Kirişci will moderate the discussion. After the program, Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu will take audience questions.

Introduction
Ted Piccone
Acting Vice President and Director, Foreign Policy
The Brookings Institution
Moderator
Kemal Kirişci
TUSIAD Senior Fellow and Director, Turkey Project
The Brookings Institution
Featured Speaker
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu
Chairman
Republican People’s Party

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Video duelling

Secretary of State Kerry took to video yesterday to explain the nuclear deal with Iran.  He does a good job, at a junior high school science level.  He seems well-suited to the role.

Meanwhile Iran’s President Rouhani put out a “yes we can” version of his inaugural address:

I’m still looking for a subtitled version but Max Fisher has helpfully published some excerpts.

No one should conclude that the Iranians are better at video duelling.  Their Foreign Minister’s soppy video last week was far from fully successful with the Western audience it was intended to impress, despite his many years living in the United States (he was Tehran’s Permanent Representative at the United Nations).

Video duelling is certainly preferable to the military kind, but the content quotient is so thin it is hard to imagine this Youtube diplomacy* will have much impact.  The US Congress will continue to fulminate, but not pass new sanctions that go into effect before the six month duration of the deal wraps up next April.  Hardliners in Tehran are more tight-lipped, as they need to be careful to toe the Supreme Leader’s line of support for the deal.

I continue to believe that we need a broader peace process between Iran and the United States, one that gets our parliaments, thinktanks, universities and media talking with each other.  A more permanent agreement will have to allow Iran some nuclear technology but prevent a rapid breakout to nuclear weapons.  It will also have to lift some sanctions (others in place because of human rights violations may need to stay in place).  I don’t see how that can be done unless there is much broader mutual understanding, in addition to tight verification provisions.  Videos are not going to suffice.

*Note that the State Department doesn’t actually post its video to Youtube, presumably to prevent it being tampered with.

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It’s the next six months that really count

If you are interested in today’s news about the six-month nuclear deal with Iran, read no further.  You’d do better to go to the New York Times for Michael Gordon’s piece on the important details and David Sanger’s on the broader issues of significance and impact on international relations.

My interest is in the prospects beyond six months.  Is this

  1. a step in the right direction towards a broader agreement that ends Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions, or
  2. is it a relatively insignificant pause in a decades-long march that will necessarily end, even if Israel or the US intervenes militarily, in a nuclear-armed Iran?

I don’t think we know the answer to that question.  What we need to think about is how to make sure the answer is 1. and not 2.  What will Tehran more likely to stop and even roll back its nuclear progress?  What would push Tehran in the wrong direction?

Sanctions

There is little doubt that sanctions have brought Iran to the negotiating table, and the propect of lifting them will be a major factor in Tehran’s thinking about whether to continue to pursue a potential nuclear weapons capability.  So should we tighten them further, or not?

I depart from the Administration and more dovish colleagues on this question.  If this is a six-month agreement, I think there is virtue in Congress making it clear what happens after the six months are up if the negotiations fail to produce a more permanent agreement.  Passing sanctions now, with a six-month trigger that the President can renew once or twice if he certifies real progress is being made, makes negotiating sense.

The trouble of course is that the Iranians will see this as pointing a gun at them while they sit at the negotiating table (there was a poster plastered all over Tehran recently with just that picture).  The majlis will likely respond with some six-month trigger of its own.  I don’t see that as a terrible thing.  There is something to be gained by being clear with each other about the consequences of a negotiating failure in the next stage.

There is also something to be gained from clarity about what happens if there is a permanent agreement.  The Congress may not like it, but it will need to act to lift sanctions and enable Iran to return from the penalty box we have put it in.

Security

The international community’s failure to respond effectively to India, Pakistan and North Korea as they each went nuclear has given Tehran good reason to believe that we won’t do much if they follow in that path.  Even bombing won’t do much more than postpone what it at the same time make inevitable.  For understandable and good reasons, we have no record of attacking a regime that succeeds in making nuclear weapons.

So somehow the non-nuclear path has to be made to look at least as secure for Tehran’s rulers as the nuclear path.  That’s distasteful, but necessary.  President Obama has already gone a long way in this direction by eschewing in his General Assembly speech last fall any intention of pursuing regime change in Iran.  If Iran wants more than that, it will need to end the tense relationship with the U.S. it has cultivated and enjoyed for more than 30 years.   And we will need to do likewise, reducing the threat of military action.

Rapprochement

That’s what diplomats mean when they talk about rapprochement.  No one snuggles with someone they don’t trust.  We don’t trust Iran.  They don’t trust us.  That makes snuggling dangerous.

Building trust is something that requires a far broader effort than what has been going on between us in Geneva in the last month or so.  The Iranians understand that.  Witness their Foriegn Minister’s unsuccessful Youtube video.  We do the same stuff:  our virtual embassy has been up and running for years, with little detectable effect on the Iranian leadership.

Trust requires personal contact.  Apart from President Rouhani’s fall visit and the Geneva meetings, there is precious little other than the nuclear negotiations themselves.  The various Track 2 dialogues (those are unofficial meetings to discuss substantial isses) have been useful, but their reach into Iranian and American society is limited.  We need far broader exchanges to build trust:  between universities, thinktanks, parliaments, research centers.  That is going to take a long time, as it did with the Soviet Union and with China.

Verification

In the meanwhile, we need verification.  Even if we decide in favor of rapprochement, we will want to be morally certain that Iran is not violating a permanent nuclear agreement behind our backs.  There is good reason to believe that they conducted some nuclear weapons research and development in the past.  They have not owned up to that or allowed verification at key sites.  This makes trust harder than it would be otherwise, and verification all the more necessary.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been good at verification in the past, and Iran has reached agreement with it on important issues.  The IAEA will be the centerpiece of any verification effort.  But neither the Americans nor the Israelis will be satisfied with only the IAEA.  They will maintain their own national means for verification, but Israel (which has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty) will refuse the IAEA access to its own nuclear facilities.  NPT parties and non-parties are not equal.  Verification will be lop-sided, and therefore difficult to arrange with Tehran, which is highly sensitive to any sign of “disrespect.”

Bottom line

The next six months are more important to resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue than the last six.  Getting a permanent nuclear agreement will require progress on sanctions, security, overall rapprochement, and verification that will not be easy.

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Peace picks, November 18-22

DC’s top events of the week:

1. Oil Security and the US Military Commitment to the Persian Gulf

Monday, November 18 | 9:00am – 2:30pm

George Washington University Elliott School, 1957 E Street NW, Lindner Family Commons Room 602

REGISTER TO ATTEND

9:00-9:20: Introduction
Charles Glaser, Elliott School of International Affairs, GWU

9:30-11:00: Threats to U.S. Oil Security in the Gulf: Past, Present and Future 
Salim Yaqub, University of California-Santa Barbara
Thomas Lippman, Middle East Institute
Joshua Rovner, Southern Methodist University
Chair: Rosemary Kelanic, Elliott School of International Affairs, GWU

11:15-12:15: The Economic Stakes: Oil Shocks and Military Costs
Eugene Gholz, LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas-Austin
Kenneth Vincent, George Washington University
Chair: Charles Glaser, Elliott School of International Affairs, GWU

12:45-2:15: Possibilities for U.S. Grand Strategy in the Persian Gulf
Daniel Byman, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Caitlin Talmadge, Elliott School of International Affairs, GWU
Rosemary Kelanic, Elliott School of International Affairs, GWU
Chair: Charles Glaser, Elliott School of International Affairs, GWU

The U.S. strategic objective of protecting Persian Gulf oil has generated little controversy since the Gulf became a focus of U.S. military deployments over three decades ago. This may seem unsurprising given the widely-appreciated importance of oil to the global economy. Nevertheless, quite dramatic changes have occurred in the regional balance of power, the nature of security threats, and the global oil market since the U.S. made its commitment-raising the possibility that the U.S. role should be revisited. This conference examines two critical questions for U.S. grand strategy in the Gulf. First, should the United States continue to rely on military capabilities to preserve the flow of Persian Gulf oil? Second, if the U.S. security commitment remains strategically sound, what military posture should U.S. forces adopt? The conference panels examine the key rationales driving current U.S. policies, the costs and benefits of alternative approaches, and options for revising the U.S. military stance in the region.

Lunch will be served.

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