Tag: Nuclear weapons
Hard choices
My friends at Reuters published today my reaction to Dennis Ross’ New York Times piece yesterday on negotiating with Iran under the heading “What does Iran want?”:
Dennis Ross, until recently in charge of Iran in the Obama White House, has outlined why he thinks strengthened sanctions have created an environment in which diplomacy may now work to block Tehran’s development of nuclear weapons. At the same time, it is being reported that Iran has finally responded to a European Union letter requiring that renewed talks focus specifically on ensuring that the Iranian nuclear program is exclusively peaceful.
These are important developments, but they leave out half the equation. What can Iran hope to get from nuclear talks with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — the U.S., U.K., France, Russia and China — plus Germany? Iran will certainly seek relief from sanctions, which have become truly punishing. But they will want more.
It is clear that Tehran’s first priority is an end to American efforts at regime change. This is not an issue Americans know or think much about, but it obsesses the Iranians. They believe that Washington has tried to bring about regime change in Tehran for decades. Iranian officials can entertain you for hours with stories about American (and Israeli) assistance to Azeri, Baloch and Kurdish rebels. The Arab Spring uprisings took their inspiration in part from Iran’s own “Green Movement,” which protested fraud in the 2009 presidential elections before being brutally repressed. While some in Congress view President Obama as insufficiently supportive of the Greens, the regime in Tehran thought the Americans were behind the whole movement.
The nuclear program, in addition to beefing up Iran’s military muscle and regional prestige, is also intended to end attempts at regime change, as it is thought in Tehran that the U.S. will not attack a nuclear weapons state for fear of the consequences. To those looking for it, there is ample supporting evidence: Witness the contrast between North Korea, a severely repressive regime that has obtained nuclear weapons, and Libya, which gave up its nuclear efforts and suffered a NATO air war that brought about regime change.
So the question becomes this: will the Americans be prepared to take regime change off the table if the Iranians are prepared to give ironclad and verifiable assurances that their nuclear program is entirely peaceful? The answer to that question is not obvious. While it is barely possible to picture Washington recognizing Tehran and re-establishing diplomatic relations after a 32-year hiatus, it is far harder to picture a bilateral agreement promising mutual noninterference in internal affairs. Certainly an agreement of that sort would not find ready approval in Congress.
Another key question is whether the U.S. is prepared to accept Iran holding on to sensitive nuclear technology, in particular, uranium enrichment, even if Tehran can use that technology only under tight international controls. Many countries have this arrangement: No one took uranium enrichment or reprocessing technology away from Argentina and Brazil when they mutually agreed to back off the development of nuclear weapons. Japan, South Korea, Sweden and many others are presumably no more than a couple of years (and probably far less) away from being able to produce a nuclear weapon.
Iran, however, is not Sweden. It isn’t even North Korea, a country far more readily sanctioned and bribed back into line and unable to produce more than a few relatively primitive atomic bombs. Iran, once it has the capacity to enrich uranium to bomb grade (90 percent or more), will be no more than a few years from getting an arsenal of nuclear weapons. In the meanwhile, it will presumably continue to develop and deploy longer-range missiles that could target Israel and Europe, if not the U.S. Can the United States, and Israel, live with that short a fuse?
The hard choices in dealing with Iran on nuclear issues are not only up to the Iranians. There are hard choices for the U.S. as well.
P.S. Anyone who doubt that the U.S. will have trouble signing on to a diplomatic solution should read this from Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Silence on the main issues
Sometimes the things that don’t happen are more important than the things that do. What did not happen last month were talks between the P5+1 (that’s the U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China + Germany) and Iran. Turkey announced repeatedly its willingness to host such talks, but the Iranians apparently never responded to a European Union letter stating that the talks would have to focus on access to all aspects of Iran’s nuclear program and demonstrating that it is exclusively for peaceful purposes.
Likewise, sometimes the things not said are more important than what is said. Hossein Mousavian, in a Foreign Affairs article last week proposes a grand bargain between Washington and Tehran:
The United States and Iran should also work together on establishing security and stability in Afghanistan and preventing the Taliban’s full return to power; securing and stabilizing Iraq; creating a Persian Gulf body to ensure regional stability; cooperating during accidents and emergencies at sea, ensuring freedom of navigation, and fighting piracy; encouraging development in Central Asia and the Caucasus; establishing a joint working group for combating the spread of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism; and eliminating weapons of mass destruction and drug trafficking in the Middle East. Finally, the two countries could do much good by strengthening the ties between their people through tourism, promoting academic and cultural exchanges, and facilitating visas.
This is not new: it is well known that Iran and the U.S. have many common interests. But Mousavian, who has been associated with the Iranian nuclear program in the past but is on the outs with President Ahmedinejad and is now at Princeton, has only the vaguest things to say about it:
Together, the two countries should draft a “grand agenda,” which would include nuclear and all other bilateral, international, and regional issues to be discussed; outline what the ultimate goal will be; and describe what each side can gain by achieving it.
He nevertheless declares:
There is a peaceful path — one that will satisfy both Iranian and U.S. objectives while respecting Iran’s legitimate nuclear rights.
There may be such a peaceful path, but the only way of finding out is to open the Iranian nuclear program completely to international scrutiny, as the EU letter required. At this point, no one believes the Iranian claims. Silence on the issue does not bode well for an agreement.
Mousavian also calls for the U.S. to drop regime change as a goal. This is the issue on which the American Administration is silent. It is the primary issue for the Iranians, who no doubt see what is going on in Syria today as a proxy war fought with the U.S. If Bashar al Assad is forced to step down, it would not only hurt Iranian interests in Syria and in Lebanon but also, they fear, presage regime change in Tehran. In addition, they fear use of Iran’s many minority populations–Azeri, Kurdish, Baloch and others–to incite rebellion and weaken the regime.
It is not clear whether this or any American Administration can give up on regime change. Especially in the lead-up to the American presidential elections, all the political pressure is for a tougher stance on Iran, not a weaker one. The same is likely to be the case in Iran, where the political pressure will weigh heavily against opening the nuclear program to international inspection.
I fear that it will only be in November that political conditions in the U.S. will permit a serious dialogue to take place. It should focus on what really counts for both sides:
- for the Americans, that means guarantees that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons (even if it continues to have enrichment technology);
- for the Iranians, it means guarantees that the U.S. is not pursuing regime change.
How would the U.S. guarantee it is not pursuing regime change? I imagine mutual recognition and establishment of diplomatic relations would be involved, and there might need to be a bilateral agreement of some sort pledging mutual non-interference in internal affairs. That would be very difficult for the U.S. to swallow.
Of course November is a long time in the future–perhaps past the time Israel is willing to wait before taking military action.
In the meanwhile, it may be wise to reach out to elements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, as Mehdi Khalaji suggests, though he is notably silent on how and where to do this. The symmetrical advice to the Iranians would be to reach out to the Republicans. It is not obvious that will be any easier.
For a far more detailed treatment of the nuclear issues, see Mark Hibbs: “Engage Iran”–What Does It Mean? He does not treat the regime change part of the equation, which so far as I can tell is left out of all Western writing on the subject of Iran.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
What doesn’t happen counts
Sometimes what matters in diplomacy is what doesn’t happen. That was certainly the case with Saturday’s defeat of the Arab League effort to get the UN Security Council to approve its plan for Bashar al Assad to begin a transition in Syria. Carne Ross, Independent Diplomat’s chief, suggested in a tweet that it was a non-event:
But in end it was non-event – no resolutn, just reaffirmation of division. Much talk; Effect on the ground, sadly, nil.
Far from it: the Syrian regime has taken it for what it was: a sign that the international community is not united in asking him to step down and he can therefore proceed for the moment to try to finish off his opposition using military force. The residents of Homs know what I mean.
The notion, purveyed most recently by Senator Lieberman, that Bashar al Assad’s end is “inevitable” is comprehensible only if you understand the peculiar American meaning of that word. Most dictionaries think it means that something will happen no matter what. But in the American diplomatic lexicon it means that we have to do something to make it happen. And Lieberman clearly intended the second meaning, as he immediately began talking about assistance to the Free Syria Army. Secreteary of State Clinton has been less clear, but she is talking about forming a multilateral contact group for support to the Syrian opposition. If the failure of the UNSC resolution triggers an intensified crackdown and military assistance to the Free Syria Army, it will certainly be an important event in the Syrian uprising.
Something else hasn’t happened lately, but no one has noticed: the P3 plus 1 (US, UK, France and Germany) meeting with Iran long rumored to take place in Turkey in late January seems not to have occurred, or if it did happen some place else no one reported it. This may be even more important than the non-resolution on Syria of the Security Council, but it is hard to know how to interpret it. President Obama in his Super Bowl interview yesterday seemed almost nonchalant in saying that Iran has to make it clear that it is not pursuing nuclear weapons. According to press reports of the recent International Atomic Energy Agency visit to Tehran, this they have not done, but another visit is scheduled for this month.
There was of course an implied “or else” to what the President said. He made it clear the military option is still on the table. But while sounding belligerent for the domestic American audience, it seems to me he was also offering an olive branch to the Iranians, essentially saying that they can keep their uranium enrichment and other technology so long as the world can reliably verify that they are not using it for weapons purposes. This is the deal many other countries have: anyone who thinks Sweden, Japan, Korea, Brazil, Argentina and a couple of dozen others don’t have the technology they require to build nuclear weapons within a year or two is living in a different world from mine.
The problem of course is that Iran is not one of those relatively reliable countries. There is ample evidence that it has begun to do high explosives research that is only useful in the context of a nuclear weapons program. If we get to summer without a clear and verifiable commitment on Iran’s part, that will be another non-event that matters. By then, talk of an Israeli attack will have quieted. That will be the clear signal that it is imminent. It’s not only what isn’t done that matters, it’s also what isn’t said.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Threats should drive responses
I’m not big on Administration testimony in Congress, as it tends to the soporific. But I enjoyed skimming Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s testimony Tuesday in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. This “Worldwide Threat Assessment” is worth a glance.
First the obvious caveats: this is unclassified testimony lacking in vital details. Clapper would not want to tip our policy hand by saying too much about Iran, China, Al Qaeda or any number of other challenges. This is testimony meant to give a broad picture of many challenges, not a deep dive into even the top priorities. The fact that the media has focused principally on its mention of the possibility of Iranian terrorist acts in the U.S. tells us more about the U.S. media than about Clapper’s view of the threats.
His introductory remarks give a hint of where he is going:
Although I believe that counterterrorism, counterproliferation, cybersecurity, and counterintelligence are at the immediate forefront of our security concerns, it is virtually impossible to rank—in terms of long-term importance—the numerous, potential threats to US national security. The United States no longer faces—as in the Cold War—one dominant threat. Rather, it is the multiplicity and interconnectedness of potential threats—and the actors behind them—that constitute our biggest challenge. Indeed, even the four categories noted above are also inextricably linked, reflecting a quickly changing international environment of rising new powers, rapid diffusion of power to nonstate actors and ever greater access by individuals and small groups to lethal technologies.
It is nevertheless striking that many threats have receded and others have developed more slowly than many of us imagined they might. According to Clapper, global jihad is fragmenting, a mass casualty attack in the U.S. is unlikely, Al Qaeda central is in decline, Iran and North Korea are not imminent nuclear threats, Afghanistan faces problems that arise as much from its own government as from the Taliban… Of course the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, as the sign in our high school coaches’ room said, but this is not the worst of all possible worlds.
It behooves us to use this respite well. It won’t last. The odds are for trouble with Iran this year, and there is no ruling out a successful terrorist attack, no matter how weak Al Qaeda gets. Clapper is remarkably silent on Pakistan and even China–I imagine that most of what he had to say is classified. Either one could cause serious difficulty, Pakistan by continuing to exploit the Taliban inside Afghanistan and China by challenging U.S. efforts to contain its growing military and political presence in the Pacific, the Middle East and Africa.
In the meanwhile, it would be wise to prepare well for the priorities Clapper cites. Their distinguishing characteristic is that none of them are amenable to purely military solutions. Terrorism, proliferation, cybersecurity and counterintelligence all fall in the unconventional warfare box. They are far more amenable to policing, diplomacy, strategic communications, and cooperation with allies than the more conventional military threats.
This is the context in which we should be evaluating the Defense, State and intelligence community budgets. The civilian side of the budget equation should be strengthened, in the name of national security. The military side should be maintained and even improved in important respects, but the notion that current cuts in personnel and hi-tech conventional weaponry are sufficient is not likely to hold. Fighter aircraft are just not very useful in dealing with the main threats, and the improved performance of the new ones is bought at a very high price.
What we need to do is begin considering the defense budget in a broader context. What can the weapons we are buying do to counter the threats we are facing? This is such an obvious question it is almost embarassing to ask it. But threats should indeed drive responses.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
This is called retrenchment
We all anticipated this State of the Union speech would not focus on international issues, but here is my short list of more important things not mentioned or glossed over:
- West Bank settlements (or Palestinians)
- North Korea
- Euro crisis
- Africa or Latin America (not even Cuba),
- Bahrain or Saudi Arabia, virtually no Egypt, Tunisia or Yemen
- China (except as an unfair competitor)
- Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, India or even Russia (except as an emerging market)
- Pakistan (except as an Al Qaeda haven)
- Strait of Hormuz
That’s a pretty spectacular list, even without noting the absence of NATO, Japan, allies, Europe, the UN…
A few notable items that were mentioned:
- Strong on regime change in Syria (putting Assad in the same sentence with Qaddafi could have implications) and on exporting democracy and free markets in general
- Positive about peaceful resolution of the dispute with Iran over nuclear weapons, while keeping all options on the table
- Trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia
- Burma as the hope of the Pacific!
Of course the President also mentioned withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, security cooperation with Israel, blows delivered against Al Qaeda, and the troops (no mention of civilians serving abroad this time around I’m afraid).
If this is a prelude to the campaign, as rightly it should be, it presages an ever more economically focused foreign policy, with security issues narrowed to a few top priorities and little focus on diplomacy except on a few specific issues. This is a vision for restoring American economic strength at home, not increasing–or perhaps even maintaining–its commitments abroad. This is called retrenchment.
PS: I should have mentioned that Richard Haas calls it “restoration.” That’s a more positive word, but the substance is the same.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
North Korean winter: stability or discontent?
As regular readers will know, North Korea is not my thing, even if I have a good deal of experience on nuclear nonproliferation issues. The last time I posted a piece devoted to it was more than a year ago, though I’ve mentioned it more often as an American priority. In the wake of Kim Jong-il’s death, the best I can do is offer a summary of what I think obvious.
North Korea is a priority for the U.S. because of the risks its nuclear weapons program poses, both for proliferation and for targeting America and its allies in South Korea and Japan. Kim Jong-il’s regime managed to test something like nuclear weapons twice (in 2006 and 2009), was developing longer-range missiles and is thought to be on the verge of acquiring substantial quantities of enriched uranium. North Korea has already been involved in murky missile and nuclear technology trade with Pakistan and Iran.
The first American concern will be short-term stability. The Obama Administration is quite rightly indicating that it is watching the situation and consulting with Seoul and Tokyo, but it would be a mistake to say or do anything that could provoke military action by Pyongyang, which readily perceives threats and uses attacks on the South both to rally internal support and to extract assistance from the international community.
This will put Washington for the moment on the same wavelength with Beijing and Moscow, which fear instability. China in particular is concerned about millions of refugees crossing its border. It will also worry that the Americans intend to take advantage of Kim Jong-il’s death to liberate North Korea and reunify it with the South. That is something Seoul says it wants and the Americans would be hard put not to support, but the process by which it happens could be dramatically problematic as well as costly. China does not want a reunified, Western-oriented, strong Korea on its border.
A great deal now depends on what happens inside North Korea. The New York Times quotes an unnamed American military source:
Anyone who tells you they understand what is going to happen is either lying or deceiving himself.
I would be deceiving myself. So I won’t try to tell you I understand what is going to happen. Things to watch for? Whether calm prevails for the next week or so, whether the funeral comes off on December 28 without signs of tension in or with the army, whether the succession to Kim Jong-un is orderly, whether food prices remain more or less stable, whether there are military maneuvers against the South. So far, the announcements out of the North suggest things are under control.
Past the next few weeks, Washington will need to decide what to do. In a remarkable but little remarked shift of policy, the Americans–who had said they would not meet with North Korea bilaterally unless it gave up its nuclear weapons programs–began meeting bilaterally with the North Koreans in 2006 as soon as they tested a nuclear weapon. Now they say they won’t return to the six-party talks (involving China, Russia, Japan, and the Koreas) unless than the talks are substantial (which means progress can be made on nuclear issues).
My guess is that we’ll see talks, but with a few months delay. North Korea is not as desperate as once it was. It will not want to rush into international talks before settling its domestic situation. The regime will want to reconsolidate itself and bargain with the five other parties from a position of strength, which likely means continuation of the nuclear and missile programs in the interim.
The wild card could be the North Koreans themselves. If protests start, the regime will crack down hard. There are signs the security forces are deploying to prevent trouble. Markets are closed. North Korea is a brutal dictatorship far beyond the imagination of Tunisia or Egypt, where protests have felled long-ruling presidents. Could this be the winter of discontents?
PS: Written before Kim Jong-un became the designated successor, but still of interest: Preparing for Sudden Change in North Korea – Council on Foreign Relations.
PPS: Just imagine what these people will do the day they are free to do as they like:
RSS - Posts
