Yesterday's peace call by the leaders of North and South Korea at the end of their historic summit in Pyongyang is bound to give Koreans on both sides of the divide immense hope for the future. But for the rest of us, particularly in the Middle East, the confirmation that North Korea will disable its nuclear reactor and give details of its nuclear program by the end of December is the bigger story. People will inevitably make comparisons with Iran, the other country that has been accused, by the US, France and others of harboring nuclear ambitions. If diplomacy can work with North Korea, people will ask, then why not Iran?
The rights and wrongs of Tehran developing nuclear weapons has generated much passion; the view of this paper is that it should not; but at the same time it is rank hypocrisy to condemn Iran for wanting the bomb (which in fact it say it does not want) but conveniently glossing over Israel’s nuclear bombs and the threat it poses — frighteningly real, particularly for the Iranians.
That issue aside, however, the reality is that the Korean nuclear saga bears little comparison to the Iranian one save that diplomacy has not been exhausted in the latter case. The fact that yesterday France, which now seems to have overtaken the US as chief scourge of the Iranians, intensified the row with a call for stronger EU sanctions against Tehran changes nothing. Threats and sanctions have always been a principal component in the armory of diplomacy. They were part of the diplomatic dance with North Korea —with both sides using them to the full.
Despite embargoes being an age-old tool of diplomacy, there are, however, sufficient differences between the Iranian and the Korean cases to make it harder for diplomacy to succeed. First, and probably most important, unlike North Korea which positively boasted about its plans to acquire nuclear weapons, even exaggerating them, Iran has consistently denied the allegations that its nuclear energy program has any military implications. That makes it difficult to get negotiations going in the first place. Secondly, Iran has no obvious Achilles’ Heal to force it to make the concessions that would satisfy its detractors. It is not, unlike North Korea, desperate for food and fuel — or anything. Indeed in North Korea’s case, the evidence indicates that its nuclear plans were simply extortion — to force South Korea, the US and others to bail it out. (If so, it has worked.) Iran does not need bailing out. The EU may be collectively its largest trading partner, providing nearly 45 percent of its imports, but EU sanctions would not hurt. It would not be difficult to find alternative sources and an embargo could be a spur to Iran expanding its own industrial base.
The other difference is that in North Korea’s case, China acted as mediator. There is currently no mediator in Iran’s case. Russia tried but was politely rebuffed. That is regrettable. Russia should try again, perhaps this timer in collaboration with China, fresh from its diplomatic successes in the Far East. The row needs to be defused. Otherwise it is going to worsen. That is hardly in Iran’s interest.
