So, let's amble along the hedgerows of this policy maze. The Geek being far more simple minded than the Deep Thinkers of the new administration will have to look at the interlocking affairs one country at a time.
The first stop is North Korea. It's first because it is both the easier matter to consider and the one where the Obama administration seems most disconnected from realpolitik requirements.
Dear Leader and the rest of the heavies of the Hermit Kingdom of the North have done precisely what any rational observer predicted they would do after the latest exhibition of toothless UN Security Council action. The Hermits have announced: (A) The Six Power Talks were over for evermore; (B) The semi-retired nuclear facilities were being reactivated.
Wow! The shock! The horror of it all!
OK, the Geek is being sarcastic in his usual heavy-handed and unsubtle way. However, from the reports it appears as though the White House has been stunned by this North Korean action.
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was either being as serious as a heart attack or giving an Academy Award level performance when he delivered this line. "We call on North Korea to cease its provocative threats, to respect the will of the international community, and to honor its international commitments and obligations."
Leave us parse the statement.
First, there was nothing inherently provocative about the North Korean actions of ejecting International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors or in restarting plutonium separation or production work. The Hermits already have sufficient plutonium for at least a half dozen moderate yield devices. The spent fuel rods currently in storage can provide enough plutonium for another one or two such devices. The reactor was "decommissioned" in a way which allows its being brought back on line without significant delay. (Further, it should be noted that the reactor was aged and should be replaced. The Hermits have been considering doing this for at least the past five years but new light water reactors don't come cheap.)
Second, there is no such critter as the "international community," Mr Gibbs. Sure, the High Minded and Lofty Thinking of academia, the law and others conveniently detached from the messy realities of international politics might pretend that such a community exists and, from time to time it may be convenient to pretend that the mythical "will of the international community" has substance. Neither of these considerations militate against the contention that there is no genuine "international community" bound together by a web of shared and common values, worldviews, aspirations and experiences.
Thirdly, where precisely are the international agreements and commitments that are being violated by the Hermits? Where is the documentary basis of your assertion? From the perspective of Pyongyang there is no basis, there are no agreements which have not been breached previously by one of more members of North Korea's interlocutors.
In short, the public position taken by the Obama administration is either meant for consumption by the folks in Buncomb County or it is cover for the arguably too flexible stance being adopted by the administration with respect to Iran and its nuclear program. Hang on to that thought for a moment, there is a bit more to say about North Korea.
North Korea has been a hemi-demi-semi sort of nuclear power now for a handful of years. It did detonate one device of low yield. This test has not yet been followed by another which hints that the one and only nudet might have been disappointing and the Hermits don't think they have fixed the problem with a sufficiently high level of confidence to waste more of their limited Pu-239 stockpile on a second test.
For purposes of argument let's assume that the Hermit's test was nominal in all regards. This prompts a critical question: How genuinely concerned are the four countries currently within range of the North Korean delivery capacity? There has been no hard indication that any of the four--Russia, China, Japan and South Korea--are or have been suffering anxiety produced sleep deprivation. This tranquil state--and it is tranquil despite periodic outbursts of frenetic activity in Japan and South Korea which run in the opposite direction--implies that either the affected countries are not persuaded that the Hermit Kingdom represents a genuine threat or assess that Pyongyang is rational enough under the surface to be deterred from any adventurism. If there had been real anxiety Beijing would have been far more robust in its efforts to stave off the North Korean "menace."
The Hermits may run the most repressive regime in the world today. North Korea may be what it has been for more than a half-century now--the Museum of Stalinist Life. But, it is no threat to the outside world except for the occasional act of state-sponsored terrorism or kidnapping.
The North Korean Peoples Army (NKPA) is the largest military preservation society on the planet. Their equipment from mortars to tanks to combat aircraft are fine examples of the military state-of-the-art of the early Sixties. Ironically, while preserving their warlike antiquities, the Hermits are not keeping the physical standards of their troops up to the same level. The median NKPA conscript of today is shorter, lighter, and less well educated then were his predecessors of twenty let alone forty years ago.
The Obama administration would be well-advised to take advantage of this latest flurry of Hermit Kingdom diplomatic temper tantrum to walk away. That's right. Just walk away from the talks, the threats, the alarmist rhetoric, the search for an "international community" united in disapprobation of the Hermits' actions.
As it is we are simply frittering away diplomatic capital and influence for no useful outcome. We can simply say to the regional actors--China in particular--if you are worried about the Nukes of the North, you do something about it. After all, China has a long border with the Hermit Kingdom. The PLA can close it to trade. Close it to North Korean flight. That sort of power translates quickly into genuine diplomatic leverage. If Beijing is really, really worried, they can and will use it. Quickly and effectively.
When it comes down to it, the US has no dog in the fight. Any hypothetical North Korean nuclear tipped ICBMs do not represent a threat to us. This reality was explicitly recognised in the Defense Department's proposed budget. SecDef Gates, who is not noted as being soft on defense or given to unrealistic appraisals of threats confronting us, submitted a budget which cuts back on the ABM program which is intended to protect Alaska and the West Coast against a "rogue state" attack.
The take-away for President Obama? Brush the North Korean dust off your hands. And, tell your guy, Gibbs, to chill out on the preposterous, hyperbolic rhetoric.
"Wait one, Geek! Doesn't North Korean defiance of the UN and the US play into Iran's hands?"
No. Not really. Tehran learned all it needed to learn years ago when both India and Pakistan engaged in a series of nuclear tests without suffering negative consequences. Between that and the success the mullahocracy has enjoyed in sidestepping the sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council, the Iranians have learned that the key to success is provided by ignoring the "will of the international community" while making plausible counter-accusations. The most that can be said of the North Korean example is that it has provided updated reinforcement of already well learned lessons.
Iranian tenacity has paid off. Not only does the country have more than five thousand centrifuges spinning away under the desert and a new, Russian built "research" reactor ready to go online, the US appears to be caving in to the realities of the situation. The Obama administration has bruited about that it is on the verge of deep-sixing both the policy of the W. Bush administration and the stance of Candidate Obama which held repeatedly that Iran must not be allowed to continue violating the "will of the international community" by pursuing nuclear research and development.
The new policy which is currently in the trial balloon stage but will become a reality absent a tidal wave of outrage is that the US will negotiate with Iran even as the uranium enrichment program continues. Our goal will be to elicit Iranian cooperation in assuring that their control of the nuclear fuel cycle is transparent and allows for no diversion of fissionable materials into bomb making enterprises.
It is hard to imagine what the US might do to further placate the Iranians on the nuclear issue. The new approach is just about everything Tehran has ever demanded. Of course, given that it is an election year over there and Ahmedinejad has an unsurpassed record at chutzpah, the Iranians will make more demands upon us.
The new, far more flexible Obama policy has the undeniable advantage of not reinforcing failure. The US has already invested awesome amounts of diplomatic capital in the so-far-failed demands that Iran stop the centrifuges before we talk. It is time to acknowledge that our efforts have failed and will continue to do so without far greater cooperation from Russia, China and several European countries.
The administration can argue to those who criticise the new approach that the military option remains on the table. The administration can also rely on publicly available intelligence reports such as the November 2007 SNIE. All indications are that there is time enough to use violent means to abate the Iranian nuclear program should less robust efforts prove bootless.
The Israelis will not (do not) agree with these contentions nor the new, more flexible stance. An argument may be made that the Saudis and Egyptians will (privately) take a position close to that of Israel.
Both Saudi Arabia and Egypt are in a Cold War with Iran. Both face direct and indirect subversion sponsored and facilitated by Iran. Both, along with other Arab states, fear the enhanced status that will be enjoyed by the (Shia) Islamic Republic of Iran as a result of its having once again faced down the Great Satan and the Lesser Devils to say nothing of the boost that would come if Iran gets the Mahdi Bomb.
This complication suggests that the diplomatic challenge for the US lies not so much with the Iranian reaction to the trial balloon or even that of critics within the US. The difficulties which may well arise in the Mideast as the Arab states digest the implications of the new policy gambit will require a lot more than a simple bow to King Abdullah to address effectively.
The realities of the Mideast preclude a just-walk-away approach to Iran. It may be in the best interests of the US to let the Hermit Kingdom do its thing without our let or our hindrance. But, that won't cut it in the Mideast and Persian Gulf areas. The long-standing policy of the US in those areas is that of precluding the existence of any hegemonic power in the Gulf and the emergence of a serious challenger to Israel in the Mideast,
The new, flexible policy suggested by the administration will not facilitate the continued accomplishment of this policy goal unless it is accompanied by a well-defined "bright and shining line" as to what the Iranians must do if it is not to face the sure and certain destruction of its critical nuclear, military, governmental and economic infrastructure. The mullahs must be made aware that while they have gained a victory in that we will talk as enrichment proceeds, at the end of the process the Iranians will not be allowed to possess either a nuclear weapon or the capacity to make one expeditiously.
If our new flexibility is to have any better chance of succeeding than the previous approach, the US must demonstrate capacity, political will and policy consistency such that our delineation of acceptable and unacceptable behavior on the part of the Iranians will be believed and heeded. It is tough, perhaps impossible, for people with a propensity for a multilateralist view of the world to understand, but the US, to protect its own national and strategic interests, must let Tehran know explicitly what we will tolerate and what will happen if it violates our limits of toleration.
Now, the real rub. The only way that a government gains and retains credibility and respect in the game of nations is consistency in policy over time. This means that whatever we do must be coherent internally and externally.
And this, the coherence requirement, is what links all policy from pirates off Somalia to missiles in North Korea to centrifuges under the Iranian desert. Policy formulated or executed in fits and starts or on an ad hoc basis or simply in response to the crisis du jour all undercut coherence. And, kids, without coherence there is neither policy nor success.
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