Strategic Paradigms by Ehsan Ahrari

The Bush administration has thus far failed to resolve the nuclear conflict with two so-called “rogue states”—Iran and North Korea.  In the final three months of his tenure, George W. Bush is making last-ditch deals with Russia and China to put pressure on Tehran and Pyongyang, respectively.  The focus of those deals is to persuade North Korea, through China, to unravel its nuclear weapons program and dismantle its nuclear weapons.  Though the Six-Party Talks—involving the U.S., China, South and North Korea, Russia and Japan—have been helpful, they have not succeeded in extracting a political solution to the conflict.  In the case of Iran, Washington is persuading Russia to cooperate in passing tough U.N. sanctions unless Iran agrees to abandon its nuclear program.  Even though Iran has been insisting that it has no aspirations to develop nuclear weapons, the Bush administration continues to pooh-pooh that explanation and states that Iran’s real intentions are to do just that. 

China and Russia are expected to cooperate with the U.S. in promoting its nuclear nonproliferation agenda at a time when the lone superpower has successfully railroaded the members of the Nuclear Supply Group (NSG) into allowing India’s access to cutting edge technology—including nuclear technology—while it remained a non-signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).  The hypocrisy involving American preferences on the nuclear issue is only too obvious to the PRC and Russia.  Whether or not they will help the U.S. regarding North Korea and Iran has everything to do with the strategic agendas that those two countries are currently promoting.

America’s efforts to keep adding economic sanctions on Iran have become a victim of deteriorating U.S.-Russia ties.  Russia is the chief supplier of nuclear technology to Iran.   In that capacity, and as one of the U.N. Security Council’s permanent members, it can also veto any U.S.-sponsored sanction on Iran that it does not like.  Thus, Washington has to make sure that Russia is on its side before new sanctions are voted on in the world body.

In the days prior to the Russian military action against Georgia, Russia appeared willing to cooperate with the U.S. on Iran. However, ties between Moscow and Washington are experiencing a new downturn.  President Mikheil Saakashvili’s decision to send troops into South Ossetia to forcefully reintegrate the breakaway province of South Ossetia into his country, created a harsh retaliation by Russia.  Since then, the continued enlargement of NATO has become an added source of anger in Russia.  Russian leaders are of the view that Saakashvili was given wrong signals by the U.S., whereby he believed that he could militarily challenge Russia, and Russia would back off of supporting the separation of South Ossetia from Georgia.  In view of these escalated tensions, Russia has acquired a nuanced position.  It will continue talking with the U.S. on Iran but only to bide time for the expiration of Bush’s term in office.  After that, Russia will deal with the next U.S. President regarding Iran.

When one examines Russia’s frustrations stemming from America’s resolve to enlarge NATO all the way to its borders, it is only natural that Russia would also be inclined to complicate and even undermine America’s agenda involving Iran’s nuclear aspirations.  About the only way Moscow and Washington will be able to cooperate in disciplining Iran is when Russia is convinced that such cooperation would be beneficial to Moscow on other important issues of mutual strategic significance.  At least from Russia’s point of view, the issue of the nuclear aspirations of Iran has become too obdurate an issue for the United States to resolve without cooperation from Moscow.  Of course, the United States has the option of taking military action against Iran, or giving Israel the nod to do so.  However, the conclusion that enormous instability and turbulence would stem from such actions is serving as deterrence for the Bush administration.

China has been cooperating with the U.S. on the North Korean nuclear weapons conflict.  However, the ties between Washington and Pyongyang have been so heavily characterized by acrimony, suspicion, and outright fear of nuclear annihilation by the United States that no ally or friend of North Korea can persuade that country to unravel its nuclear weapons program, and especially dismantle its nuclear weapons, merely to fulfill American demands regarding nuclear nonproliferation.  In addition, the PRC must also calculate how far it should go in pushing Kim Jong Il to accept American demands.

One must also keep in mind another important variable.  North Korea is a Stalinist state, whose destruction has been an integral part of America’s foreign policy objectives throughout the course of the Cold War.  Even though Washington no longer pursues the Cold War-related agenda in its relations with China and Russia (Russia has begun to publicly dispute that perspective in its interpretation of America’s resolve to enlarge NATO even in the 21st Century), the Cold War between North Korea and the United States has never ended.  Thus, regardless of how many security guarantees are offered to North Korea by the United States, it will not believe that it, indeed, is safe from a sudden U.S. decision to launch a nuclear attack.

Under these circumstances, no one in Washington, Seoul, Beijing, Moscow, or Tokyo wishes to face the fact that the only way North Korea’s nuclear weapons will be dismantled is when that Stalinist state collapses or implodes.  However, admitting that description as a high probability and not continuing an effort to find a political solution for the U.S.-North Korea nuclear conflict cannot become an option for the current or the next U.S. administration or the other parties to the Six-Party Talks.

Finding solutions to the North Korean and Iranian nuclear conflicts have an intricate similarity and dissimilarity.  The similarity part of the equation is that those conflicts require the cooperation of two countries (China and Russia) whose ties with the U.S. are not steady or sturdy.  For that reason, they might not fully share America’s urgency to resolve those conflicts.  Alternatively, China and Russia would want to be helpful but only to postpone, if not to avoid altogether, the implementation of potential American military action.  That appears to be Russia’s rationale for cooperating with the U.S. on the Iran nuclear conflict.

The dissimilarity involving these issues goes along the following lines.  In the case of North Korea, China has influence but not infinite influence.  In the final analysis, North Korea will decide when to even say to China, “Thanks but no thanks.”  Since North Korea possesses nuclear weapons, it can afford to tell even its major interlocutor to mind its own business without fear of military action by the U.S.

Iran, on the contrary, is not in a similarly advantageous position.  Since it does not possess nuclear weapons, it is dependent on Russian (and Chinese) support to ensure that the watered-down versions of any economic sanctions are passed, if at all.  Alternatively, following the North Korean example of dealing with the PRC, Iran may tell Russia to mind its own business, but then it remains vulnerable to a U.S. or Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities.

Ironically, this very reality makes the case for those who have always argued that the only way one can stand up to the United States is to possess nuclear weapons.  That also was one of the motivating factors—even though not the dominant one—in the thinking of India’s development of nuclear weapons.  A nuclear-armed Kim Jong Il can afford to remain defiant of the United States.  A non-nuclear Iran cannot.