An old proverb states that when you’re in a hole, you should stop digging.  When it comes to missile defense, many Republicans prefer to keep digging.  Perhaps none in recent memory have dug quite so spectacularly as Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) during and after Tuesday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on New START with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton…

During the question-and-answer period, DeMint reiterated the standard far-right boilerplate that New START will limit U.S. missile defenses and provide Russia with a veto over U.S. programs – despite repeated reassurances from Gates, Mullen, and Clinton that the treaty will not in any way constrain U.S. missile defense plans.  Yet what separated DeMint’s attack from most other Republican critiques was his assertion that the treaty will “keep our missile defense to the point where it does not render their [Russia’s] weapons useless.”

Fred Kaplan and Peter Baker have already provided great summaries of the exchange.  Baker’s account is particularly effective in exposing DeMint as less than informed on national security policy:

Notice how DeMint tries to associate the view that U.S. missile defense shouldn’t negate Russia’s deterrent with “the left.”  Nice try, Senator!  In addition to Gates and W., the bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States concluded that “Defenses sufficient to sow doubts in Moscow or Beijing about the viability of their deterrents could lead them to take actions that increase the threat to the United States and its allies and friends.” (Oh and I would of course be remiss in not extending kudos to the Heritage Foundation for allowing DeMint to attempt to completely whitewash the record!)      

This entire episode would actually be pretty hilarious if it weren’t for the fact that DeMint is one of 100 Americans who will actually decide the fate of New START.

For the fourth year in a row, the House Armed Services Committee has ignored Pentagon recommendations (including a veto threat from Sec. Gates) and approved the continued development of the F136 alternate engine, developed by General Electric and Rolls-Royce, for the F-35 fighter aircraft program.  

The measure would require the Pentagon to budget for the alternate engine starting in fiscal 2012 and withhold 25 percent of fiscal 2011 funds for F-35 development until the Pentagon’s top arms buyer certified that all funds for the engine’s development and procurement had been made available.

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett said during the markup today that “competition is warranted and critical and costs nothing more, according to the GAO.”

This isn’t quite true.  Money for the upfront costs of building and buying an alternate engine are not included in current DoD plans, so any increase is just that – an increase – and any actual savings brought about by competition will easily be eaten up.

“Study on top of study has shown that an extra fighter engine achieves marginal potential savings but heavy upfront costs — nearly $3 billion worth,” Gates said on May 8.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell reiterated later today that Gates would recommend a veto if Congress budgets any funds for the alternate engine:

Pursuing an extra engine is an unnecessary luxury we simply cannot afford, especially in our current fiscal condition… Any savings that might result from an engine competition are years away, purely hypothetical and likely modest at best.

Morrell went on to say that amount we will spend to complete an alternate engine for the F-35 “would prevent us from providing our warfighters with more urgently needed equipment.”

Hat tip to the Institute for Science and International Security for obtaining a copy of the Iran sanctions resolution draft presented to the United Nations Security Council yesterday evening. You can download the .PDF here.

The other side of the ‘time’ coin I mentioned yesterday (a far less optimistic side) is Iran’s potential use of the fuel swap to stall sanctions.  In the past, this technique has worked out well.  If one assumes that, once again, Iran is not sincere in its offer and is simply “playing Lucy and the football with the LEU,” negotiations could be over before they even begin.

Enter Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at this morning’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on New START.  

“We have reached agreement on a strong draft with the cooperation of both Russia and China,” she says, at the most inopportune and, frankly odd, time possible:

We plan to circulate that draft resolution to the entire Security Council today. And let me say, Mr. Chairman, I think this announcement is as convincing an answer to the efforts undertaken in Tehran over the last few days as any we could provide.

Hmm – wasn’t expecting that.  I am reminded, though, of the reason I decided to support now-President Barack Obama in the 2008 primaries.

If the council adopts the resolution, it would represent the fourth round of sanctions against Iran.  Unfortunately for sanctions, many have already accepted their inevitable failure…

In recent weeks administration officials have been downplaying expectations. Mrs. Clinton no longer refers to ‘crippling’ sanctions, the word she used in the summer of 2009. Earlier this year she referred to ‘biting’ sanctions, and President Obama, in an interview in April, declined to characterize how the sanctions would affect Iran. Other officials say they do not expect these sanctions, even if they pass as now written, to dramatically change Iran’s behavior.

With this realization and a heavy dose of skepticism, the administration has decided to go against better judgment and impose sanctions anyway… quickly… just to get them out of the way and then…negotiate?  Probably not.

Clinton’s statement this morning looks like an all out rejection.

As details of a new UN sanctions resolution begin to emerge, members of the Security Council acknowledge that sanctions are not an end game.  The Obama Administration will need to move forward with other options, even with strong multilateral sanctions in place.

Ambassador Susan Rice and others noted at the UN that the original purpose of the fuel swap was as a confidence-building measure.  Without that benefit, the swap holds little meaning.  Iran’s refusal to suspend enrichment to 20 percent and an amorphous timeline for removal of LEU in the Turkey-Brazil deal have been deemed “unacceptable,” according to Clinton.

While Iran has shown that it does not want these sanctions or further international isolation, and may therefore bend to international pressure, the political timing of this announcement is anything but ideal.  To maintain face, Iran’s leaders will feel that they need to come out strongly against the US for refusing to accept (or even negotiate on) their own deal.

Sadly, this move could easily represent a step back in US/Iran relations and, potentially, progress in stalling Iran’s nuclear program.

Kim Jong Il’s declaration last week that he was willing to ‘provide favorable conditions for the resumption of the Six-Party Talks’ marked a positive change in tone from North Korea’s previous insistence on a peace treaty with the U.S. as a precondition to resuming negotiations.  However, the pledge comes just six weeks after the deadly sinking of a South Korean navy vessel, the Cheonan – a catastrophe that Seoul appears set to formally accuse North Korea this week of.

While it’s unclear if the torpedo rumored to have sunk the Cheonan was actually launched by the order of Kim Jong Il, both the U.S and South Korea have made it clear that there will be no resumption of nuclear talks until the case is resolved.   And until a response is decided upon and implemented, engagement of any sort will remain out of the question.

While North Korea denied attacking the Cheonan, sources within both the U.S and South Korean Governments have continued to insinuate that Pyongyang is to blame.  Suggestions that a key KPA General was promoted at the time of the sinking, and that a rumor of responsibility has been ‘proudly’ circulating North  Korea, further call into question Pyongyang’s assertion of innocence.  Other indicators of North Korean culpability include the fact that the ship sunk so close to the disputed Northern Limit Line and the traces of the powerful explosive ‘RDX’ recently identified at the scene.  Despite all this, there has still been no official confirmation of what seems to be crystal clear – a North Korean torpedo sunk the Cheonan…

Two weeks after the sinking, Aidan Foster-Carter characterized the unwillingness to attribute blame as a South Korean effort to stabilize markets and avoid a potentially bloody conflict wit the North.  Now, however, the near continuous flow of leaks incriminating North Korea has rendered this strategy increasingly untenable for President Lee Myung-Bak.

Likely aware that is has no meaningful or workable policies with which to respond to the North’s latest provocation, South Korea is looking at measures such as stopping sand imports from the DPRK, revising their 2020 Defense Reform plans, and urging businesses to refrain from investing in North Korea.  For its part, the U.S has stated that it is looking at the tightening of existing sanctions or the possibility of raising the issue at the UN’s Security Council.  It also appears that South Korea and the U.S. will present their Cheonan findings to partners within the Six Party framework – presumably to drum up support for some form of joint condemnation / punishment.

To be sure, none of these response strategies will change anything about North Korea’s future behavior. More bad behavior may even ensue.  And the prospects for even talking about denuclearization will lose further traction – for the short to medium-term at least.   But as frustrating as this is, South Korea and the U.S have no choice, as was the case after the DMZ axe murders of 1976.  With 46 navy personnel killed, there must be a negative consequence for Pyongyang – however negligible that might seem given current options.

The whole episode underscores the current failure of North Korea policy.  Be it Obama’s ‘strategic patience’ or Lee Myung-Bak’s efforts to cold-shoulder North Korea, it is evident that neither approach has so far achieved anything constructive.   The idea that Pyongyang would come crawling back to the table to engage with the U.S and South Korea in the face of heightened sanctions and continued isolation has simply proven incorrect.   With the sinking of the Cheonan, North Korea sent a nasty reminder that it will not be ignored, fully aware that South Korea and its allies are in no position to exact meaningful consequences.

Despite this author’s belief  that North Korea will never give up its nuclear arsenal (assuming Kim Jong-Eun is no different from his father), it is clear that to ignore Pyongyang is to do so at one’s own peril.   While the Six Party Talks are unlikely to achieve their overriding goal while the Kim dynasty is in power, they do represent a form of high level engagement that has potential to foster both constructive outcomes and mutual respect.   They can reduce tensions, help rejuvenate North-South economic interaction, and perhaps freeze North Korea’s plutonium reprocessing activities again.  All of this is an upgrade over the current mess of a status quo.

The clock is ticking.  As each day passes, the North Korean regime is walking one step closer to its ultimate demise.  By essentially ignoring North Korea, and leaving it to vent its frustration through acts of belligerency, the U.S and South Korea are putting themselves in a position where their stern responses will only work to harden that landing in the long run.  This will clearly be the case, if for example a freeze on economic interaction in response to the Cheonan be implemented, which has been estimated to cost up to 80,000 North Korean jobs and the loss of US$370 million per year – a significant sum for cash strapped Pyongyang.

So while punishment is necessary, by what means must be chosen carefully.  And after that, increased engagement will be key, even if denuclearization seems unfeasible.

North   Korea wants and badly needs attention.  With the Cheonan incident, it has given the world a taste of what happens when it does not get it.  And as Aidan Foster-Carter puts it, next time the ‘Pyongyang pressure cooker may be liable to explode’.