William Hartung notes that the best deal the Bush administration could get out of the DPRK is worse than the situation they had when they came into office and decided the Agreed Framework was no good so they could just feel free to screw it up (Fred Kaplan's 2004 article on this fiasco is an eternal must-read). Still, making the deal was the right thing to do, albeit in a too-little, too-late kind of way. It's got Michael Hirsch asking why we can't apply the same tactics to Iran.
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Nork Nuke Deal
04 Oct 2007 04:46 pm
Comments (8)
It should be obvious why Bush isn't going to negotiate with Iran.
And it has absolutely NOTHING to do with what that diplomat said about Bush thinking Iran is an "illegitimate regime".
Bullshit.
Iran has oil. NK didn't.
Iran has a weaker military than NK - this is where Hirsch gets it wrong. Iran may be bigger and more populous than NK, but there is no way its military can be compared to North Korea's. NK could, according to Pentagon war games, deliver 50,000 US casualties in the first 90 days or a war. NK could deliver 500,000 artillery shells on US positions PER HOUR. North Korea has 100,000-plus Special Forces troops - two of which escaped a grounded infiltrating NK sub in South Korea and eluded pursuit for two months in South Korea, killing 11 of their pursuers in the process.
And of course North Korea actually HAD nukes that they could deploy using their submarine and submersible fleet.
This is the sole reason Bush didn't attack North Korea - oil and the prospect of a war the US would take five years to even approach winning and suffer horrendous casualties to do so.
While Iran CAN win a war with the US by using 4th Gen war strategy, the US military will face a much weaker enemy in Iran than NK would have been. US casualties in Iran INITIALLY will be much less than against NK - even if far greater than in Iraq. But the war with Iran will go on longer than one in NK because it will be less of a "hot war" and more of an insurgency. It will last as long as Vietnam but be far more costly. US casualties in the end will approach those of the Vietnam conflict.
So again, the real problem is "know your enemy" - which in this case means, know what Bush is motivated by. He's NOT motivated by a sincere desire to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. He KNOWS Iran does not HAVE a nuclear weapons program. He and Cheney are ginning up this war with Iran for reasons which have nothing whatever to do with nuclear weapons, terrorism, or anything else they babble about to the stupid media who never question any of it.
And until you understand that, you cannot predict what he will do.
I agree we've got a worse situation with NK now than we had when Bush first took office... In the sense that the trajectory NK was on even then has taken them in a direction we don't like. But this has the same stink about it as your nonsense about Bush killing Kyoto; He notices something is already dead and stinking, and in response gets blamed for killing it.
As though pretending NK was abiding by that agreement would have left us in a better place today.
The deal Clinton got out of NK (after quite a lot of sabre ratting - threatening to bomb them, such a warmonger) was already dead when Bush got into office. NK had commenced a secret uranium enrichment programme and there was bickering over whether or not Clinton had kept his side of the bargain regarding aid (I blame NK not Clinton).
So Bush decides that an alternative approach would be to deal with NK in a multilateral setting (something he's usually criticised for not doing), especially getting China to shoulder some responsibility. For that Bush is accused of "out sourcing" US foreign policy.
And it turns out to have worked.
The question is not "why doesn't the US apply the same tactics with Iran?", the US is using the same tactics - carrot and stick, but "why does Iran not want to act like NK and accept a deal?
Still, making the deal was the right thing to do, albeit in a too-little, too-late kind of way. It's got Michael Hirsch asking why we can't apply the same tactics to Iran.
B/c, real men go to Tehran, my pretty.
All geopolitical disasters in their season.
Neil's post is so totally incorrect it's hard to know where to start. So we'll start at the beginning.
"The deal Clinton got out of NK (after quite a lot of sabre ratting - threatening to bomb them, such a warmonger) was already dead when Bush got into office. NK had commenced a secret uranium enrichment programme and there was bickering over whether or not Clinton had kept his side of the bargain regarding aid (I blame NK not Clinton)."
There was no "bickering". The US unilaterally abrogated the agreement by refusing to deliver the fuel oil and failing to push the light water reactors.
Then Bush blew in with his "Axis of Evil" bullshit and direct threats. The North said, basically, "Fuck this, we're pulling out of the NPT and going nuclear. Deal with us or get left behind."
"So Bush decides that an alternative approach would be to deal with NK in a multilateral setting (something he's usually criticised for not doing), especially getting China to shoulder some responsibility. For that Bush is accused of "out sourcing" US foreign policy."
The entire issue was Bush's threats against North Korea. This required Bush to directly engage the North in talks. This he refused to do, continuing to let the rabid John Bolton continue to make threats and insult the North.
This required China to step in and try to defuse the situation, since they didn't want a war starting on their borders for three reasons: 1) they do a lot of business with South Korea and if a war started, South Korea was history; 2) if a war started, eventually the US would win it and put troops on China's borders in North Korea; and 3) a war would exacerbate China's North Korean refugee problem.
Only when it was clear - PUBLICLY clear - after North Korea tested a nuke that they really DID have nukes - and when it was clear that Bush couldn't do anything about North Korea without suffering a war with 50,000 US casualties in the first ninety days - on TOP of IRAQ - and thus that Bush's "multilateral" strategy was not working did Bush cave in and allow the diplomats to work something out.
"And it turns out to have worked."
Yeah, right - all credit to Bush - NOT.
"The question is not "why doesn't the US apply the same tactics with Iran?", the US is using the same tactics - carrot and stick, but "why does Iran not want to act like NK and accept a deal?"
Because a) the US has offered NO carrots to Iran, despite your fantasy; b) Iran needs nuclear energy and can NOT give up a nuclear energy program; c) Iran is NOT doing anything illegal with its program, therefore it does not believe it should give it up; and finally and most importantly, d) none of this is relevant because Iran does not HAVE a nuclear weapons program and Bush knows it; none of this is about "nuclear weapons" any more than Iraq was about nuclear weapons. It's about oil and US and Israeli hegemony over the ME.
It's that simple.
Get a clue.
"The US unilaterally abrogated the agreement by refusing to deliver the fuel oil and failing to push the light water reactors."
I don't know about the oil but the NK were complaining about the lack of progress on the LWR back in 1998. So perhaps the US did abrogate the deal under Clinton. I still blame NK.
NK responded by setting up a secret uranium enrichment programme. When that came out the US suspended technology shipments (in Dec 2002). In Jan 2003 NK withdraws from the NNPT.
Bush had continued with the LWR deal and only put a halt when the uranium programme was revealed.
You should probably read up on the six party talks that started in Aug 2003. They were the direct result of the US pushing for a multilateral solution.
"Iran needs nuclear energy and can NOT give up a nuclear energy program"
Well yes, no-one objects to Iran developing nuclear energy. The US gave LWR's to NK for that purpose.
"Get a clue."
I did your comment "It's about oil and US and Israeli hegemony over the ME." said it all.
"Well yes, no-one objects to Iran developing nuclear energy."
You really don't know anything about what's going on, do you?
Both Israel and the US stated position on Iran is: no enrichment ever.
And absolutely no one (except the Russians, of course) has suggested doing what the NPT Charter requires nuclear nations to do: assist Iran in developing a nuclear energy program.
You also once again ignored the point that the multilateral talks were NOT what was required. NK was holding out for talks with the US, since it was the US making threats and reneging on deals that was the problem.
There was NO NEED for multilateral talks. There was a need for bilateral US-NK talks - which Bush stonewalled until the North proved they had nukes.
It was only when Bush caved and allowed the negotiators to offer concessions to the North that the diplomacy proved fruitful (temporarily, that is - the North has made this deal before, and the US reneged - I fully expect the US to renege again.)
Comments closed October 18, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
It's a little rich for Hirsch to say that the Nork deal is "what negotiations are all about," since the refusal of the US to do one-on-one talks with the Norks was a point of constant contention between the Administration and the DC press.
But to answer his question, North Korea and Iran are in different neighborhoods and different circumstances. China was the wild card in the Far East. Who would play that role with Iran?
Look what Hirsch wrote here:
"For the last year Washington had effectively subcontracted nuclear negotiations to Beijing, which was given the lead in the “six-party” talks that pitted Pyongyang against the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea."
Hirsch also wrote this:
"If North Korea does de-nuclearize, it will go down as a triumph of Chinese mediation."
Or look at what he wrote here:
"Did Kim decide to test a nuclear device last week because the leader of the world's only superpower refuses to talk directly to him?"
Or here:
"We probably don't have to rehash the problem with too much unilateralism, the subject of a Time magazine cover story this week, called "The End of Cowboy Diplomacy." The article arrives at a conclusion that most sentient beings reached long ago: the old Bush doctrine, involving preemptive strikes against rogue regimes, is over and done with, and so is the policy of acting without caring what the rest of the world thinks. But for the better part of Bush's second term—the last year and a half, in other words—the problem has been the opposite one. The issue now is not the unilateralism of yesterday, but the multilateralism of today. To wit: there's simply too much of it. And without decisive American action in dealing with the Mideast, Iran and North Korea, things can quickly spin out of control."
When asked about North Korea's missile tests, which Bush had specifically warned Kim Jong Il not to carry out, the president simply deferred to multilateral talks led by China. "What I'm not going to let us do is get caught in the trap of sitting at the table alone with the North Koreans," the president said. If he did, he suggested, then Pyongyang might blame Washington if the talks broke down. "Sometimes it's easier for the leader of the nontransparent society to turn the tables and make a country like the United States the problem," Bush said, as if anticipating the blows he would receive in the world's media from the diminutive Kim Jong Il. So lost is U.S. policy on North Korea today that even Japan, our most peace-loving ally, is talking about developing a pre-emptive-strike capability to take out Pyongyang's missile sites.
[...]
The lesson here is that America still has to lead like a superpower. And when it comes to dealing with the Mideast, or with Iran and North Korea—the last two members of the "axis of evil"—America isn't leading, it is following.
A prodigal policy returns, I guess, and Papa Hirsch loves him again for the first time.
Posted by JA | October 4, 2007 7:05 PM