Defusing the Korean time bomb

The new agreement about the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea’s (DPRK - North Korea) nuclear program is most welcome. This agreement is the result of intensive and difficult six-party negotiations between China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States. In one form or another, with numerous interruptions, false dawns and near-crises along the way, negotiations with Pyongyang have taken well over a decade.

In return for American and South Korean assurances that neither harbours aggressive intentions towards the DPRK, that neither has any nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula, and for undertakings to supply the DPRK with desperately needed power, Pyongyang has agreed to abandon “all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs”. As an additional quid pro quo, the DPRK’s right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy has been recognised with “respect” and an undertaking to discuss the provision of a light water reactor at “an appropriate time”.

It has also been agreed that the DPRK and Japan should seek to normalise relations. Significantly, this includes a reference to the settlement of “unfortunate” past issues and current issues of concern. (I have written before in On Line Opinion on Japan’s reluctance to address its history of World War II atrocities). Finally, it has been agreed that the belligerents in the Korean War should finally negotiate for a permanent peace regime on the peninsula.

The agreement is to be implemented on the basis of “commitment for commitment, action for action”.

The authoritarian regime in Pyongyang has been in serious difficulty for at least the last decade. The failure of its neo-Stalinist command economy has made it an international food aid beggar, while its fear of collapse has caused it to adopt a provocative and difficult international posture. The George W. Bush US, for its part, has seemed at times determined to back Pyongyang into a corner. But this agreement, if honoured in spirit as well as letter by all parties - a big “if”, given the history of the region - may at last defuse the Korean time bomb.

Paradoxically, however, it may actually ramp up the intensity of the disputation surrounding Iran’s (allegedly civilian) nuclear endeavours. It would be a mistake to assume that the Iranian nuclear program is a creature of that country’s hardliners, now with complete political power following an election of dubious credibility earlier this year. On the contrary, there appears to be wide support in Iran for a nuclear program, and even for nuclear weapons. To quote from a Washington Post story on March 11, 2003:

Leading theoreticians at opposite poles find common ground articulating a national ambition that diplomats warn could hold the seeds of a crisis if it is realised.

"Are nuclear weapons bad?" asked Amir Mohebian, an unofficial adviser to Iran's supreme leader, the conservative Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. "Why don't you make the same protest against Israel?"

"It's basically a matter of equilibrium," said Mostafa Tajzadeh, a leading theorist in the reform movement that controls [2003] Iran's parliament. “On the one hand Israel says, ‘If I don't have it, I don't have security’. And we say, ‘As long as Israel has it, we don't have security’.”

"We believe the way to deal with Israel's expansionism is to democratise the region," Tajzadeh said. "But while things are the way they are, public opinion in Muslim countries, and in Iran, is not going to be against having nuclear weapons."

What this means is that Iran - which, unlike the DPRK, is no economic basket case - is not easily going to give up its nuclear ambitions. Clearly, energy-rich Iran does not need nuclear power for civilian energy supply; its claims to the contrary are a smokescreen. It desires nuclear weapons because it feels insecure and it knows that nuclear weapons, once it has them in deliverable form, can enhance its security.

Iran’s feelings of insecurity have escalated in recent years. There have been American troops across its eastern border with Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001. Aware of the risks, Iran has been punctilious in its relations across that border. Anxious not to be tarred with the Al-Qaida brush, it also handed 16 suspected Al-Qaida members to the Saudis in August 2002.

Since the US conquest of Iraq in 2003, Iran has had powerful American forces in two of its neighbours. One would not need to be a particularly paranoid Iranian to conclude that this is an acutely uncomfortable strategic situation. With American armies flanking the country on two sides, many Iranians have concluded that, to preserve independence, Iran needs some further insurance.

The DPRK agreement will tend to isolate Iran; it now knows that, unless the pact unravels, the Americans will not be distracted by Pyongyang. Indeed, the DPRK’s decision will be held up as an example or precedent in order to increase the pressure on Teheran.

Nevertheless it will not be possible to bully Iran into compliance. I do not believe that Iran really needs nuclear weapons to guarantee its security, but that is easy to say living in Australia. However, Iran would be no military pushover like the Taliban or Saddam’s Iraq. It is a large country, hardened by years of (ultimately successful) defensive war against Saddam. Its people would certainly rally to any regime that sought to defend it against American attack. It would require forces far in excess of those deployed by the US against Saddam in 1991 (which were more substantial than those used in Afghanistan or in the last Iraq war) to attempt the military coercion of Iran.

Frankly, I doubt America’s capability to do this, especially as the counter-insurgency bloodbath in Iraq continues to drain off US resources with no end in sight. Nor do I really believe that Washington would be so foolish as to make the attempt. If it did, whatever else happened the resultant explosion among Iraq’s majority Shi’a Muslims would seriously destabilise Iraq at the same time as the US was engaging Iran (which is substantially Shi’a in faith). Even should it succeed in producing a deliverable weapon - something still a fair way off, and now probably more difficult with the DPRK unlikely to continue as a source of assistance - Iran’s missile programs are far from production of a system capable of reliably delivering a weapon as far away as US territory.

But if there is widespread political consensus in Iran, however misguided it may be, about the desirability of attaining a nuclear weapon capability, it is likely to prove at least as difficult, and take at least as long, to persuade the Iranians otherwise as it has taken to achieve this goal with the DPRK. And one thing is certain: overt pressure, sanctions, or attempts to back the Iranians into a corner will not succeed. For all its bellicose rhetoric, the DPRK is fundamentally a weak and failing state. Iran is not.