Washington agreed yesterday to talks with Iran and North Korea. Both Tehran and Pyongyang have indicated they want to negotiate and President Barack Obama has taken them at their word. The Americans will not doubt for one moment that each of these dialogues will be tough and from their point of view, frequently frustrating.
The mote in Washington’s eye is that it has never recognized that the existence of Israel’s undeclared and unmonitored nuclear arsenal destabilizes the Middle East and has always threatened to promote a response from another country in the region. If Iran is indeed embarked upon its own nuclear weapons program, it is in large measure as a counter to the Israeli threat. Because Israel begged, borrowed or stole much of the technology for its deadly arsenal from the United States, the Americans are in significant measure responsible for any desire by Iran to restore the balance of nuclear terror. Iran is also surrounded by neighbors with nuclear weapons. Tehran also knows why nobody in the US threatens to “obliterate” North Korea and almost everybody there supported the invasion of Iraq.
Therefore when Obama’s people sit down to talk to the Iranians, they cannot simply start from the fact that Iran has refused to honor its international obligations by opening up its atomic program to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Israel has refused the selfsame thing, but when has Washington ever protested or issued threats over this? It is right, therefore, that the negotiations that Iranians have proposed and which Obama has accepted are expected to be wide-ranging and will not immediately lock down on the nuclear issue. Such a premature focus will almost certainly doom them to failure.
With North Korea, Washington is on less promising ground. Pyongyang has played the negotiation card so many times before when the international pressure was building up and when Beijing had become impatient with its neighbor’s provocative behavior. The North Koreans see their nuclear weapons, and the rocketry they are developing to deliver them, as a deterrent. Behind this screen, the secretive, militarized state can continue to exist for the benefit of its elite ruling cadre. Furthermore, whenever its economy faces collapse, largely through the incoherence and incompetence of its quasi-communist structure, an armed and dangerous Pyongyang can demand assistance from the outside world and expect to be appeased.
What could Washington possibly offer the North Korean regime by way of guaranteeing its continued existence, in return for the ending and destruction of its nuclear program? Change when it comes to Pyongyang will almost certainly be triggered by China, whose continued support is essential for its survival. Nevertheless America does have a role, not simply along with the other members of the six-party talks, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia. The planned bilateral negotiations will doubtless give the government of Kim Jong Il a better idea of how flexible and patient the Obama administration will be. It will, however, be extremely important for Washington to keep Beijing briefed at every stage, to avoid the danger of the North Koreans seeking to play one off against the other.
With neither Tehran nor Pyongyang is a successful outcome even on the horizon. But it is absolutely right that this president is prepared both to talk and hopefully also listen.
