Lessons for North Korea: Disable, Don't Inspect

Few things irk my colleagues more than when someone tells them "I told you so," because it implies that they could not see around the corner. At the same time, pointing out that one was right in the past is one of the few ways to show that one may have a handle on what is next coming. Hence, with all due respect, the recent developments in North Korea -- if things continue to unfold as expected! -- support two major points I laid out in my recently published book, Security First: For a Muscular, Moral Foreign Policy.

First and most important, we are much better off following the Libya deproliferaiton model than the one we are promoting for Iran and elsewhere. In the past, the centerpiece for dealing with the spread of nuclear arms was embodied in the NPT (the non-proliferation treaty). The treaty allows a nation to build nuclear reactors and acquire or make highly enriched uranium which happens also to be the one needed to make nuclear bombs. All a nation must do in order to be in full compliance with the NPT is to allow inspectors to verity that the reactor and uranium are used to generate energy, medical treatments or scientific research and not to produce bombs.

Mazel Tov. Inspectors, however, have time and again been fooled. Above all, a nation that has built such facilities can, with very short notice, legally quit the NPT (as North Korea did) and then use these facilities to manufacture bombs at will. Oddly, this obsolete model is the one the US and its allies are still pushing Iran to accept.

In North Korea, a radically different approach is taking hold. It is the same approach that we pursued very successfully in Libya in 2003: close down and disable those reactors that can be used for both civil and military purposes, cart away the dangerous materials which can be used to make bombs, and in exchange, provide that nations involved with other sources of energy or other goods they desire.

On Monday, July 16th North Korea has shut down its weapons-making nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. The next steps include disabling this and other such reactors and removing the materials from which bombs are made as well as the bombs themselves. These future steps remain uncertain, but at least we are on the right path.

Second, I was among those who argued that threatening nations such as North Korea with regime change will make them dig in their heels. It does not take a great insight into human nature or the psychology of heads of state to realize that they will not take kindly to suggestions that they put themselves out of business (which introducing democracy would certainly mean). Nor are these heads of state likely to consider changing the regimes that they have dedicated their lifetime to construct. Telling North Korea or Iran to go democratic as a part of a nuclear non-proliferation negotiation is like telling President Bush that, for starters, he should turn the keys to the White House over to Al Gore and campaign for gay marriages and abortion rights. It is not a very promising way to start a give and take, to say the least. Instead, if we inform nations such as North Korea and Iran that we are willing to sign a non-aggression treaty with them (which both have requested), committing ourselves not to pursue a policy of regime change by military force in their country, they might be willing to fold their nuclear program. This thesis is now being tested in North Korea. See it working.

For those who follow the presidential election campaign, a quick cut from here to those Democratic candidates who have laid out their positions on this issue. For excellent statements on this subject see Bill Richardson, who has much experience in this matter, having served as Secretary of Energy under Clinton and having dealt on numerous occasions with the North Koreans, including heading a private bipartisan delegation to North Korea earlier this year (Richardson on Iran, and on Nuclear Terrorism). For another well-formulated and compatible statement see the positions taken by Barack Obama, which goes way beyond the NPT, which is exactly where I believe we need to and, above all, can go (Obama's Foreign Policy Fact-Sheet). Hillary has not yet laid out her foreign policy, but she has made some speeches on the subject that suggest that she is still tone-deaf on this issue (Hillary on Iran, Hillary on Foreign Policy). But do not count her out; she is a quick study. If we could now get the Republican candidates to join the deproliferation line -- replace all reactors that can be used for both civilian and military purposes with those energy sources that serve only peaceful goals -- we might be on our way to a much safer world. (Then I may be even forgiven for having crowed 'I told you so'...)

Comments

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I have a feeling I'm going to be forcibly withholding "told you so's" in regards to the mortgage meltdown soon. It is widely being touted as a "subprime" meltdown, and empirically speaking, I just don't see that... I see the interconnecting threads from the greedy/fearful borrowers to the greedy/fearful end-user investors and providers of cheap credit. The poo-poo that I'm getting lately is: "relax the damage will be distributed over global markets and everything will be fine." Do you think so too? Do you see foresee the effects that our sputtering economy will have on our foreign relations? Can't help but think that we will be regarded as weak.