THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VIII, Issue # 117, July 6, 2006
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
DANGEROUS CYCLE: NORTH KOREA, IRAN,
& REPETITIVE DIPLOMATIC FAILURE
By Dr. Michael Rubin
UNITED STATES DIPLOMACY & NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROLIFERATION: U.S. & WESTERN DIPLOMATIC ENGAGEMENT
WITH NORTH KOREA & IRAN -- HOW & WHY THE ENGAGEMENT PROCESS HAS FAILED & CONTINUES TO FAIL TO PREVENT
ROGUE POLITICAL REGIMES FROM ACQUIRIMNG NUCLEAR MILITARY CAPABILITIES
FULL STORY:
Ignoring both international calls for moderation and Washington's warnings, North Korea launched seven missiles on July 4
and 5, 2006, including the longrange Taepogdong-2, which will be capable of delivering a nuclear payload to the United
States. That the Taepogdong-2 apparently failed after 40 seconds is irrelevant; engineers test missiles to identify and rectify
problems, and so each test brings them closer to their goal.
The Bush administration denounced Pyongyang's actions. "The United States strongly condemns these missile launches and
North Korea's unwillingness to heed calls for restraint from the international community," a July 4 White House statement
read. Unfortunately, recent U.S. diplomacy has undercut the value of such condemnation. Pyongyang need only look at
Tehran for an understanding of how illusionary U.S. red lines are.
Both North Korea and Iran's nuclear diplomacy are testaments to how Western diplomats reward intransigence. Take North
Korea: During a June 30, 2006, American Enterprise Institute panel, Danielle Pletka pointed out the pattern: On August 31,
1998, Pyongyang fired the Taepodong-1 missile over Japan. Three months later, U.S. officials held the first round of
high-level talks in Pyongyang. North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, demanded to be rewarded for ceasing his provocations. He
was. The following year, U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry visited North Korea to offer normalized relations and a lifting
of economic sanctions, if Pyongyang froze and eventually dismantled its longrange missile program and stopped its missile
exports. On September 17, 1999, President Bill Clinton eased sanctions against North Korea. Two months later, a U.S.-led
consortium signed a $4.6 billion contract for two Western light-water nuclear reactors for the Stalinist police state. The
Clinton administration began shipping food aid to the famine-ridden north, which Pyongyang used to grease its war machine,
even as ordinary citizens starved.
Having been given everything it had asked for, Kim Jong Il decided he wanted more. On July 1, 2000, he threatened to restart
the nuclear program if Washington did not compensate it for electricity lost by delays in plant construction. Pyongyang then
threatened to reverse course on its missile test moratorium. It did. In July, 2001, it conducted a Taepodong-1 engine test.
All the while, Kim Jong Il cheated. The Bush administration did not initially agree to accept North Korean smoke-and-mirrors.
In October, 2002, the Bush administration announced that Pyongyang had operated a covert nuclear weapons program, in
violation of its 1994 agreement.
Diplomats may celebrate treaties. Many who helped negotiate the 1994 Agreed Framework
have meritorious service certificates framed on their wall. But agreements are meaningless, if not adhered to, and seldom do
autocracies stick to agreements, if they gain more through noncompliance.
The Iranian government has followed a similar pattern. In order to moderate hardliners and encourage Iran both to scale back
terror financing and cease its obstruction of the Middle East peace process, the European Union pursued a policy of critical
dialogue and engagement. It did not work. In 1992, the same year that Germany launched its critical engagement policy,
Tehran purchased what it anointed the Shihab-2 missile from Pyongyang. The Shihab-3 missile, basically the North Korean
Nodong-1 by another name, soon followed.
Meanwhile, Europe's dialogue continued. Between 2000 and 2005, the European Union almost tripled its trade with the Islamic
Republic. But rather than invest its hard currency windfall in hospitals, schools and civilian infrastructure, the Iranian
leadership accelerated its military and nuclear programs. In March, 2001, just a year after U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright lifted tariffs on Iranian products, as an olive branch to the regime, Iranian President Muhammad Khatami traveled to
Moscow to arrange a $7 billion arms purchase. The Iranian arms binge continued, even as Khatami promoted his Dialogue of
Civilizations and his U.N. Ambassador charmed U.S. officials.
On September 24, 2005, the International Atomic Energy Agency found Iran to be in noncompliance with the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty's Safeguards Agreement. It may be fashionable to blame Bush and the war on terror for all the
Middle East's ills, but the Islamic Republic built up its nuclear program during the terms of former Presidents Ali Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989-1997) and Muhammad Khatami (1997-2005), both of whom took advantage of Western naïveté and
the willingness of European governments to subordinate longterm security to shortterm commercial interests.
On January 12, 2006, the Foreign Ministers of Great Britain, France and Germany, along with European Union High
Representative Javier Solana, issued a statement tacitly acknowledging the failure of years of engagement and dialogue with
their Iranian counterparts. Their proposal to break the impasse? Further incentives. Without demanding either a firm timeline
for negotiations or reaching agreement upon measures to be taken in event of Iranian noncompliance, Condoleezza Rice
signed on. She directed U.S. negotiators to agree to a European request for Washington to offer Iran several hundred million
dollars in nuclear and aviation technology. Today, Tehran refuses to give a direct answer, and instead demands more. The
U.S. State Department can talk about new deadlines and red lines, but the Iranian government has every reason to believe
Rice will offer further concessions.
In some quarters, concession is popular. The New York Times cheered both Warren Christopher's concessions to
Pyongyang and Rice's outreach to Tehran. On October 19, 1994, the paper's editorial board opined, "Diplomacy with North
Korea has scored a resounding triumph," while on June 3, 2006, it declared, "Smart diplomacy scored a rare victory inside the
Bush administration this week." But, as the tests show, the North Korea model is one of failure, not success. Condoleezza
Rice should not believe her own press.
The White House should condemn Pyongyang's provocations. But it should also recognize the process by which the
Stalinist state acquired such capabilities. That the Bush administration now seeks to replicate the same process with the
Islamic Republic is little more than dereliction. The future of Iran's nuclear program lies in the North Korean crystal ball.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Military Weaponry & International Security:
Weapons of Mass Destruction & Arms Control
The Far East & U.S. Foreign Policy
The Middle East & the Problem of Iran
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Michael Rubin, a Ph.D. in History (Yale University) and a specialist in Middle Eastern politics, Islamic culture and Islamist
ideology, is Editor of the Middle East Quarterly and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public
Policy Research. Dr Rubin is author of Into the Shadows: Radical Vigilantes in Khatami's Iran (Washington Institute
for Near East Policy, 2001) and is co-author, with Dr. Patrick Clawson, of Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2005). Dr. Rubin served as political advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad (2003-2004); staff
advisor on Iran and Iraq in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense (2002-2004); visiting lecturer in the Departments of
History and International Relations at Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2001-2002); visiting lecturer at the Universities of
Sulaymani, Salahuddin, and Duhok in Iraqi Kurdistan (2000-2001); Soref Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy (1999-2000); and visiting lecturer in the Department of History at Yale University (1999-2000). He has been a fellow at
the Council of Foreign Relations, the Leonard Davis Institute at Hebrew University, and the Carnegie Council on Ethics and
International Affairs.
The foregoing article by Dr. Michael Rubin was originally published in National Review Online, July 6, 2006, and can
be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum.
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
July 6, 2006
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