At 6:15 this evening, in the East Room of the White House, President Obama will sign into law “the toughest ever unilateral US sanctions against the Islamic republic” that nobody believes will work.

The Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act was passed last week by overwhelming margins in both the House and Senate: 408-8 and 99-0, respectively.  

Despite Congress’ denial of exemptions for cooperating countries sought by the administration, reactions from the White House have been mostly positive.  In a statement released Friday, Secretary Clinton welcomed the passage of the legislation, saying that both she and President Obama support the “broad aims” of the Congressional action.

While the final measure does contain significant human rights and development initiatives that should not be discounted, they do little to offset the fact that the people of Iran, not the regime, are most sensitive to broad sanctions such as those passed by Congress.

Update 7/2/10: Remarks by the President at the signing can be found here.

Over the past several months, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and others have urged Congress to pass a $33 billion supplemental spending request to continue funding the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  In recent weeks, the tone of the rhetoric has intensified, with Gates warning that the military may have to start doing “stupid things” if the supplemental is not passed by the upcoming July 4th recess.  Even General David Petraeus has weighed in on the issue in recent days, urging the House to pass the bill during his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday.

Reversing the usual pattern, the Senate passed its version of the bill on May 27, but the bill has stalled in the House, largely due to two concurrent factors:

1) Large-scale defections of Democratic representatives who do not wish to go on record as having voted for more war funding, and;
2) Republican resistance to billions in spending that has been tacked on to the bill for programs unrelated to the war.  These include aid to Haiti, other disaster relief funds, disability payments to veterans, and much more.

Congress won’t make its July 4 deadline for a conference agreement, but the House hopes to pass its version of the bill later today.  In the final scramble, the bill is changing by the hour, but as of June 30 it had ballooned to nearly $75 billion.

(Highlights of the bill after the jump)

While we all wait patiently, let’s take a look at some highlights of the Senate’s recommendation:

•    $33.43B in emergency war appropriations
•    $13.37B in compensation for Vietnam veterans who suffer from a variety of health issues due to exposure to Agent Orange
•    $5.48B in domestic disaster response funding
•    $2.13B for various Haiti relief efforts
•    $1.72B in economic support to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Jordan, Vietnam, and El Salvador
•    $1.26B for Diplomatic and Consular Programs in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Mexico
•    $1.181B emergency funding for the War on Drugs (at least this is a war of some type)
•    $30.58M in emergency farm loan subsidies, plus an additional $950M authorized (which technically doesn’t count towards the grand total of the bill)
•    $165M global refugee assistance
•    $45M to fight H5N1 (bird flu) and H1N1 (swine flu) worldwide
•    $22M for increased Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission salaries
•    $12.96M for emergency acquisition of a new radio system for the US Capitol Police
•    $1.8M to study the ongoing financial crisis
•    $174K for the late Rep. John Murtha’s widow, Joyce
•    -$111.5M in emergency rescissions from the federal Digital-to-Analog Converter Box program (Americans unable to watch TV? Now that would have been an emergency.  Thankfully it seems we overestimated the number of 30 year-old television sets out there.)

The total cost of the bill is $58,962,089,000.

In this Senate version, at least, a slim majority of the funding (56.7%) goes towards the war.  22.7% goes to Vietnam veterans.  The remaining 20.6% mostly goes to Haiti and domestic disaster relief, which are at least stated to be part of the bill’s purpose.

With vast sums being spent on unrelated programs such as farm subsidies, police radios, and the never-ending War on Drugs, the definition of the word ‘emergency’ has become blurred.  This is not to say that many of these programs are a bad use of taxpayer dollars, but the salient question is: Why must they be included in an emergency supplemental appropriations bill?  Then again, the student of American government (also known as “the cynic”) knows that this happens every year.

The point is, whether add-on funding comes in the form of highly controversial or legitimately useful programs, this is a war funding bill, and pork is still pork no matter how it tastes.

The House version will no doubt contain much more unrelated spending, with the war quickly becoming a minority provision.

Guest Post by Volha Charnysh

Yesterday, U.S. ambassador to Russia John Beyrle urged Moscow to join Washington in building a worldwide missile defense system. Last week, prior to his meeting with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, Barack Obama was quoted as saying that “cooperative missile defense with Russia has enormous potential” and that the United States “want[s] to work with Russia to be a key player and beneficiary in this global [missile defense] architecture.”

The idea of U.S.-Russian missile defense cooperation is not new, and the initiatives considered today have been pondered for decades. The two countries agreed to “explore opportunities for intensified practical cooperation on missile defense for Europe” in a joint declaration at the May 2002 U.S.-Russia Summit, but their dialogue reached an impasse when George W. Bush unveiled the plan to build 10 interceptor missile systems in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic.

A window of opportunity for Russia’s participation reopened with Obama’s September 2009 decision to deploy a phased adaptive missile defense in Europe. As per the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, U.S. proposals for missile defense cooperation with Russia include integration of U.S. and Russian sensors; joint research and development; joint missile defense testing; joint modeling and simulations; missile defense exercises; and joint analyses of alternative U.S.-Russian missile defense architectures for defending against common, regional threats. After the U.S. change of plans, NATO has also expressed readiness to explore the potential for linking U.S., NATO and Russian missile defense systems and declared missile defense cooperation with Russia its target for the next NATO Summit in Lisbon in November 2010…

Despite its longevity and revived popularity, missile defense collaboration remains a contentious issue, and not only because the technical plausibility and cost-effectiveness of missile defense systems are still being debated. However modest the scope of cooperation in question – primarily technology and information sharing – some in Washington fail to see its potential benefits. For example, Bill Gertz writes in Washington Times that the Obama administration is “secretly working with Russia” on an agreement that may limit U.S. missile defenses.

I argue that missile defense collaboration with Moscow, which has already become an important U.S. partner in confronting nuclear proliferation challenges, would not only help to reduce Russia’s concerns regarding U.S. missile defense plans, but also provide Washington with additional technology and expertise, send a stronger message to regimes developing ballistic missile capabilities, improve the U.S.-Russian bilateral relationship, and open possibilities for further arms reductions.

First, by cooperating with Moscow, which has a wealth of missile defense technology and expertise, Washington could reap important technological benefits. In fact, U.S. firms like Boeing and Lockheed Martin are already exploring the possibilities of joint design and development projects with Russian companies: a Russian liquid fuel rocket engine is used in new U.S. space launch vehicles, while a Russian rear moveable exhaust nozzle is employed in some models of the Joint Strike Fighter.

Washington could both augment its capabilities and save resources by taking advantage of the Kremlin’s 2007 proposal to grant the United States access to the Gabala radar station in Azerbaijan and the Armavir radar station in Russia’s Krasnodar Territory. The Russian radars are much closer to Iranian targets than any potential U.S. installations, and with some adjustments, they could detect missile launches not only from Iran, but also from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. The radars could also be linked to the missile launch data exchange center in Moscow, created by the U.S.-Russian Memorandum Of Agreement in 2000 “to minimize the consequences of a false missile attack warning and to prevent the possibility of a missile launch caused by such false warning,” but never built due to liability and tax issues. The efforts to make the JDEC a reality have intensified with the Obama Administration’s change of plans, and the center could become an important element of the U.S. phased adaptive missile defense in Europe.

Second, U.S.-Russian missile defense collaboration would send a strong message to regimes seeking to develop missile capabilities. For example, Tehran might think twice about developing longer range ballistic missiles if Russia, its long-time economic partner and ally, were integrated into European missile defenses against an Iranian strike. With a stake in the European missile defense system, Moscow might also be more eager to support international sanctions against Tehran and less careless about the technology it exports.

Third, engaging Moscow in a joint missile defense project could only improve U.S.–Russian bilateral relations. Information exchange and joint R&D efforts could increase transparency and trust between Moscow and Washington, thereby deepening their understanding of each other’s capabilities and intentions and reducing the incentives for mutual suspicion. By working with the West to defend Europe, Russia would feel more integrated into the European security architecture. In an indirect way, this would help address the concerns expressed by Moscow in its draft of the European Security Treaty, which failed to elicit a thoughtful response from the West.

Most importantly, missile defense collaboration could pave the way for the next round of bilateral strategic arms reductions. Moscow and Washington have reached their first shaky compromise on missile defense in New START. The treaty’s preamble notes the interrelationship between offense and defense and bars the United States from placing missile defense interceptors in ICBM silos or SLBM launchers – something the United States no longer plans to do. In addition, Moscow issued a unilateral statement that it would consider withdrawing from the treaty if the U.S. develops strategic defenses capable of threatening the Russian deterrent –something the United States also has no intention of doing. However, the most difficult and bitter disagreements over missile defenses lie ahead, and the amount of contention generated by the modest wording in the New START in Washington suggests that the road to further reductions will be closed, unless the United States and Russia are able to collaborate on missile defenses in the future.

Of course, whether the benefits mentioned above actually come to fruition depends on overcoming some important political and technical challenges. However, the two sides concluded far more complicated agreements in far less auspicious circumstances during the Cold War. Today, with the “reset in their relationship and with the possibility of the NATO framework bringing the two countries together on this sensitive issue, the success of the U.S.-Russian missile defense cooperation looks even more likely.

In her January 29 speech at L’Ecole Militaire in Paris, Secretary of State Clinton called missile defense “an extraordinary opportunity for us [the United States, NATO and Russia] to work together to build our mutual security.” It’s time for the two countries to muster enough political will to make this happen.

Volha Charnysh is currently the New Voices Nonproliferation Fellow at the Arms Control Association and will begin a Ph.D. in government program at Harvard University in the fall. The views expressed are her own.

At least Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) is honest.  At last Thursday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on New START, he explained his absence at the previous nine hearings on the treaty thusly:

I agree that this is the tenth hearing you’ve had.  I would suggest that you haven’t had any hearings where the witnesses are opposed to the treaty….We’ve had…seventeen witnesses so far; no witnesses in opposition to it.  I don’t know who thinks that can be reasonable.

Inhofe continued that he could finally show up because the tenth hearing included two witnesses (Bob Joseph and Eric Edelman) whose questions about the treaty largely comported with his own.  

As you may recall, a day before the hearing our own John Isaacs published a nice little blog over at the Chain Reaction taking the good Senator to task for criticizing New START without bothering to show up for or ask a single question at any of the previous public hearings.  

While Inhofe eventually got around to correctly noting that it was John who criticized him for his prior absences (who knew the Council had the power to get a Republican to show up at a hearing??), he at first confused John’s missive with an ad paid for last week by the Partnership for a Secure America (PSA) in which 30 Republican and Democratic leaders backed the treaty.  The endorsement included such left wing luminaries as Colin Powell and former Senators Nancy Kassebaum-Baker (R-KS), Howard Baker (R-TN), and Alan Simpson (R-WY).  Inhofe actually held up the PSA ad and claimed that it was attacking him!  

Ohhh the irony.  I doubt Senator Inhofe intended to inadvertently make the case for New START, but he ended up doing just that.  As he noted, the seventeen previous witnesses who support the treaty include the likes of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (assumed his position under W. Bush), Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen (assumed his command under W. Bush), STRATCOM Commander Gen. Kevin Chilton (assumed his command under W. Bush), Stephen Hadley (National Security Advisor under W. Bush), Brent Scowcroft (National Security Advisor under H.W. Bush), Jim Baker (Secretary of State under H.W. Bush), and James Schlesinger (Secretary of Defense under Nixon and Ford).  Add these to the PSA ad (which Inhofe triumphantly displayed at the hearing) and what you get is an ironclad bipartisan consensus in support of New START.  

This is just a thought, but maybe the Obama administration should hire Inhofe to do some of its PR on the treaty?

Last week the Council on Foreign Relations released a Task Force report suggesting that the current U.S policy of ‘strategic patience’ offers a ‘time time frame for achieving denuclearization…so vague that there is a significant risk that [it] will result in acquiescence to North   Korea’s nuclear status as a fait accompli.’ Echoing a frustration shared by many Korea watchers, the report describes the current administration’s efforts toward the objective of denuclearization in North Korea as ‘halfhearted’.  It warns that Washington must up its game and deal with the policy challenges presented by North Korea, ranked according to their fundamental importance: 1) preventing DPRK nuclear proliferation to others; 2) rolling back the nuclear program; and 3) integrating the isolated nation into the international community.

In order to deal with these issues the Task Force first identifies and reviews four policy options for the current administration: (1) explicitly recognizing and acquiescing to a nuclear North Korea; (2) containing and managing the problem; (3) attempting to roll back the program and; (4) pursuing regime change.  The report suggests that while the current policy of ‘strategic patience’ is most similar to option 2, it is now time to pursue this in combination with option 3, including ‘a stepped-up combination of sanctions and incentives designed to make North Korea abandon its nuclear programs’.

While many will welcome the timeliness of the report and its rightful critique of current policy, it is not clear how the proposed combination of policy options 2 and 3 can offer Washington any new leverage over Pyongyang…

This is especially so in light of the recommendation that ‘the United States should continue to make it clear to North Korea that there is no prospect of diplomatic normalization without denuclearization’.  Indeed, setting one’s desired outcome as a precondition to providing the other side with any real benefits has so far proved an ineffective route to realizing positive results.  By advocating the status quo of delaying normalization until after denuclearization, it is hard to see what of the reports’ suggested interim ‘inducements’ would actually motivate North Korea to get rid of its weapons – after all it is technically still at war with the U.S, and continuously argues that it needs its nuclear deterrent to prevent U.S attack.

Thus the reports’ recommendations all sound very familiar – bandage the gunshot wound with a small plaster (non-proliferation and denuclearization with cargo inspections and export controls), get out the sticks and carrots (sanctions / aid and cultural exchanges), then hope that the Koreans will change their tune.  This will not, and has never worked.

While aid is often welcomed, the nature of the regime in the DPRK means cultural exchanges will only ever be inbound (sending its nationals abroad is not in the regimes interest). The best carrot is thus diplomacy, pursued genuinely and not simply as a reward for good behaviour.  After all – diplomacy does not just mean engaging with friends; it also requires engagement with countries with which one has disagreements, to seek outcomes of mutual benefit to both parties.   And while engagement between the U.S and North Korea has borne little fruit, this should not be viewed as a justification to delay new and credible negotiations that could ultimately break the current impasse.

The report is correct in noting that the Obama administration has so far made little effort to negotiate or liaise with the North Koreans in any meaningful way. While the President may well have had plans to do so, it’s evident that North Korea’s long-range rocket launch on 5 April 2009 and its second nuclear test on May 25 2009 made it nigh politically impossible to do so.  But to characterize this belligerent period as a North Korean effort to place ‘every possible obstacle in the way of renewed dialogue’, as the report does, is to misrepresent the reality of U.S.-North Korea diplomacy in the run up the 2008 presidential election.

In describing these months the report suggests that the situation Obama inherited followed ‘last-ditch efforts on the part of the George W. Bush administration to convince the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to accept international verification of its nuclear facilities as part of a February 2007 implementing agreement under the six- party framework’. But this description of events fails to point out that North Korea had no obligation to verify any of its facilities under Phase Two of the Six Party Talks.

At Phase Two, when Pyongyang submitted an 18,000 page declaration of its plutonium activities in June 2008, the U.S was in return supposed to delist North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terror.  Instead of doing this, Washington demanded that before it could remove North Korea from the list, Pyongyang should accept intrusive inspections of its declared facilities – a significant and retrospective modification of the February 2007 agreement.  These ‘last-ditch efforts’ thus amounted to last-minute goalpost shifting.   Condoleezza Rice even admitted as much in June 2008, saying that “what we’ve done, in a sense, is move up issues that were to be taken up in phase three, like verification, like access to the reactor, into phase two”.  And when Washington did finally remove North Korea from the state sponsors of terror list in October 2008, it did so in the context of simultaneously suspending energy aid until North Korea accepted the proposed verification protocol.

Unfortunately, the CFR report makes no mention of these significant u-turns in policy.  In this author’s view, they are a major reason why relations deteriorated post-2008.  While North Korea’s nuclear programme is once again continuing unchecked and the country has reverted to engaging in reckless behaviour, it nevertheless continues to maintain that it is still committed to denuclearization and wants ‘a specific and reserved form of dialogue’ (read bilateral, with the United States).  Consequently, it seems clear that any effort to denuclearize North Korea must be pursued with this in mind – and as such engagement and diplomatic normalization should be implemented in tandem with initial steps in other areas, such as disablement and dismantlement. Reserving them as the final reward in contrast, will achieve little – if anything.

As Stephen Haggard and Susan L. Shirk aptly point out in the ‘Additional and Dissenting Views’ section, ‘[this] report wrongly suggests that these policy measures need to be rank ordered, when they should be under- taken in combination. Engagement is a crucial long-run element of any strategy toward North Korea if we are to gradually transform its economy and society and thereby improve the welfare of its people and change its stance toward the world.’