North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is reportedly in China and there’s speculation his son Kim Jong-un, heir apparent, is traveling with him. Kim Jong-il’s China trips are usually confirmed after he returns to the North out of security reasons, but offici…
CARTER TO THE RESCUE… AGAIN
August 25, 2010
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is in North Korea to secure the release of Aijalon Mahli Gomes, a 30-year-old American missionary who was sentenced in May to eight years of hard labor and fined $700,000 for illegally entering the North. Carter met Pyongyang’s nominal leader Kim Young-nam and may even sit down with Kim Jong-il. The trip is significant because the release of an American civilian has once again brought a former U.S. president out of retirement at a time when tensions are high between Washington and Pyongyang as well as on the Korean peninsula. What’s more, it comes at a time when the Dear Leader’s health is said to be deteriorating. History has shown that the political environment tends to warm after a former U.S. president flies to the rescue. Why send Carter now and what can we expect from his trip? Click “read more.”
WHY CARTER?
President Carter is no stranger to freeing hostages in North Korea. He did it in 1994, which in effect defused the first nuclear crisis by bringing the two sides to the negotiating table. He is also well-liked by North Korea and has negotiated with Kim Il-Sung, founder of the regime and Kim Jong-il’s father. Carter is also a symbol of peace and has consistently urged the U.S. to engage North Korea with dialogue regardless of circumstance.
However, Carter has been known to take matters into his own hands and he may be tempted to put his spin on U.S. foreign policy once again. In 1994, he brokered a deal to improve U.S.-North Korean relations in exchange for denuclearization, the scope of which was first brought to the Clinton administration’s attention during a CNN broadcast of Carter’s voluntary trip. Unable to reverse the work of a former president, the Clinton administration had to use Carter’s deal as the foundation of the 1994 Geneva Agreed Framework.
Pyongyang may misinterpret Carter’s visit as President Obama’s willingness to move beyond the Cheonan incident and ease pressure against the North. The challenge will be to ensure that Carter does not engage in freelance diplomacy again, especially since his personal views run counter to the Obama administration’s current containment policy, although the door is open for rewarding good behavior.
The Cable reported Carter was chosen because he is not an acting U.S. official. However, Yonhap News (Korean text only) reported that Pyongyang specifically requested President Carter via an intermediary, Professor Hans Park at the University of Georgia, during his trip to North Korea trip early July.
OBJECTIVES AND OPTIONS
U.S. and South Korean officials are tight-lipped on details of Carter’s visit. What’s more, North Korea continues to be a black-box, which is why it is easy to speculate rather than offer concrete arguments based on confirmed facts. Still, some cautious observations about the potential objectives of the different actors involved can be made based on history and present circumstances:
a) U.S. – Private, Humanitarian Mission? The U.S. administration maintains that Carter’s trip is strictly “humanitarian and private,” which were the same words used when former U.S. President Bill Clinton visited North Korea to free two American journalists at a tense diplomatic time. Many North Korea watchers immediately interpreted Carter’s visit as Washington dispatching an envoy, but the State Department has denied this.
If, in fact, Carter’s trip is purely a private humanitarian mission as the U.S. claims, then prospects for a breakthrough depend on Kim Jong-il (see more on this below). It is unclear whether Kim will follow his late father’s footsteps and attempt to engineer another breakthrough in the nuclear saga.
However, the public seems to be forgetting that Gomes walked into North Korea with the intention of getting caught. The missionary was said to have been on a mission: to spread Christianity and covert North Korea. To rescue Gomes may prompt him to head right back to the North. If there are more like him with the same mission, and if this become a pattern, Pyongyang may see it as another money-making opportunity since it slaps fines in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
b) U.S. & South Korea – Nuanced “Exit Strategy?” Until now, the Obama administration’s rhetoric and actions have made it clear that it is willing and ready to forego dialogue on the nuclear issue until after a North Korean leadership transition. Washington will soon slap more sanctions on Pyongyang and tensions are running high with the North having fired artillery near the de facto maritime border after a joint South Korea-U.S. military exercise. However, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reportedly ordered fresh options be examined out of frustration with the current policy.
To date, Seoul has been firm that it will not participate in a resumption of the six-party talks until Pyongyang takes responsibility for torpedoing the Cheonan. However, the South Korean position may be softening. According to South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan, “Strictly speaking, the sinking of the Cheonan and our punitive measures against the North, and the resumption of the six-party talks are different in nature.”
c) North Korea – Bargaining Chip? Some North Korea watchers caution that Carter’s trip will be used by Pyongyang to augment its legitimacy internally amid leadership succession uncertainties and bilateral tensions. The regime is also expected to herald the Carter visit as a diplomatic victory in the face of Washington’s tough stance towards it. This may explain why Pyongyang reportedly (Korean text only) vowed to release Gomes if Washington were to send Carter to the rescue. The trip also follows North Korea’s official media report that Gomes attempted suicide, frustrated his country was not doing more for him.
d) North Korea – Avoiding Responsibility? Pyongyang may use Carter’s visit and dangle the prospect of resuming negotiations as another way to avoid taking responsibility for sinking the Cheonan. North Korea may be receiving China’s help to do just that. Beijing has been trying to arrange another round of six-party talks, and Carter’s trip comes on the heels of Chinese nuclear envoy Wu Dawei’s visit to the North. Wu is also scheduled to visit Seoul and Tokyo this week to discuss resuming multilateral nuclear negotiations.
POSSIBLE OUTCOMES & IMPLICATIONS
How might the current impasse look after Carter’s visit? Expect one or more of the following scenarios:
a) Breakthrough? North Korea’s latest behavior suggests that chances are low for the immediate resumption of six-party talks. Against this backdrop, Carter’s visit may be seen as an opportunity for Washington and Seoul to transition from their current policy of containment to one of engagement. However, the Obama administration has held firm to its two-track policy of pressure and talks: it will only engage Pyongyang if the regime agrees to fulfill its past nuclear commitments and returns to the six-party talks. It has also supported Seoul’s position to resume nuclear dialogue after a North Korean apology for sinking the Cheonan. If Carter’s mission does lead to some sort of a breakthrough, the South Korean public will not allow the Cheonan incident to be brushed over lightly.
Kim Jong-il’s next move is anybody’s guess. But Carter’s visit may be the last time he can take matters into his own hands directly with the U.S. as his health continues to deteriorate. It may serve as a face-saving measure for Pyongyang to return to international dialogue in light of upcoming U.S. financial sanctions that could further isolate it from the global community. The trip will also provide a clue as to whether Kim has the will to take concrete steps toward denuclearization. At the least, Carter’s visit could lead to a resumption of direct Washington-Pyongyang dialogue and possibly among all six parties. Nevertheless, the mission will be meaningless for the nuclear impasse if it does not result in a shift in North Korean behavior.
b) Feeding Bad Behavior? Following President Clinton’s trip, Pyongyang initially engaged in talks with Washington but used them to make additional demands and upped its provocations. If this outcome repeats itself following Carter’s visit, then it will have served to vindicate North Korea’s unwillingness to compromise.
c) Inter-Korean Relations? It is unclear whether Gomes’ release will help thaw inter-Korean relations. The release of two American journalists after President Clinton’s visit led to the return of South Koreans, and the same result is widely hoped for this time as well. Four South Korean and three Chinese fishermen are currently being held in North Korea for allegedly crossing into the North’s exclusive economic zone. If they are released, it could serve as an opportunity for the two Koreas to resume dialogue.
RECOMMENDATIONS
– Creativity and strategic flexibility should always be explored in finding a way to break the North Korean impasse. However, the message should remain that countries must abide by certain international rules and agreements. Washington must continue to prod Pyongyang to fulfill past nuclear pledges in exchange for the other five parties upholding their end of the bargain.
– If Carter’s mission results in progress or even a breakthrough, the allies will need to carefully deal with the Cheonan attack so that it does not become a forgotten incident.
– Given Kim Jong-Il’s ailing health, contingency plans must also be made to cushion any shocks as a result of a possible collapse in the North amid a leadership succession. Seoul’s consideration of imposing a “reunification tax” signals that time may be approaching faster than expected.
Verification, GOP style
Former Assistant Secretary of State for Verification, Compliance, and Implementation Paula DeSutter has spent most of the summer arguing that the New START treaty drops the ball on verification. This is a pretty daft claim, since DeSutter was one of the ring leaders for an administration that believed verification was neither necessary nor useful. Recall that the Moscow Treaty was entirely devoid of any detailed data exchanges and monitoring and verification provisions. In the eyes of DeSutter, President Reagan’s signature phrase “trust but verify” read “trust but don’t verify”.
Both Kelsey Hartigan and Greg Thielmann have penned great take-downs of DeSutter’s latest contribution, which is particularly stunning and riddled with obfuscation. Writing in the National Review earlier this week, DeSutter alleges:
Had the administration deemed the data provided under START to be critical, they could have extended the START treaty until negotiations on New START were completed and it was ratified by the U.S. and Russia. Instead, they let START expire and negotiated against a deadline after making clear their desperate desire for getting an agreement.[emphasis mine.]
Alas, the 2007 version of Paula DeSutter made an extension of START I next to impossible:
While the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty or START “has been important and for the most part has done its job,” Assistant Secretary of State Paula DeSutter told Reuters the pact is cumbersome and its complicated reporting standards have outlived their usefulness.
In the post-Cold war era, many provisions of the 1991 START accord, which mandated deep nuclear weapons cuts, “are no longer necessary. We don’t believe we’re in a place where we need have to have the detailed lists (of weapons) and verification measures,” added DeSutter.[emphasis mine.]
Kelsey also points out that DeSutter ran roughshod over the verification provisions in other key arms control treaties.
In last week’s Washington Post, Walter Pincus noted that the standard by which many Republican Senators are judging New START is markedly different from the one they used to judge the George W. Bush administration’s Moscow Treaty. As we’ve noted on the blog before, nowhere is this more evident than on the issue of verification. See below the jump for some choice comments from select Republican Senators on verification during the Moscow treaty debate. Could it be, as former Bush I national security adviser Brent Scowcroft has suggested, that “some just don’t want to give Obama a victory” before the midterm elections?
Remember, “trust, but don’t verify”…
Sen. Wayne Allard
What is most notable about the Moscow Treaty as submitted to this body is the absence of certain provisions that normally marked Cold War era arms control treaties. Those provisions were based on distrust and antagonism. Instead, this treaty utilizes confidence building measures based on trust and friendship.
March 5, 2003
Sen. Bill Frist
Many have observed the extraordinary ease by which this treaty was negotiated and compare its three short pages—indeed, it is just three short pages—to the many thousands of pages of documents negotiated between the United States and the Soviet Union during the cold war.
This last point is, for me, the most significant of all, for as important as the substance of this treaty is, it is the form—the trust between the United States and Russia—that most shines through.
March 5, 2003
Sen. John Warner
The Moscow Treaty is unlike any treaty we have had before. It is the first arms control treaty to embrace the new Russian-U.S. strategic relationship. In negotiating this treaty, both sides consciously rejected the cold war mentality of distrust and hostility that previously had required lengthy negotiations and extensive legal structures and detailed verification regimes to ensure that both sides would abide by their treaty obligations.
March 5, 2003
Sen. Jon Kyl
This treaty is a masterstroke. It represents, and, I am sure, will be sent as ushering in a wholly new approach to arms control for a wholly new era. The simplicity of this treaty is a marvel. It is extremely brief, indeed just three pages long. It is shorn of the tortured benchmarks, sublimits, arcane definitions and monitoring provisions that weighed down past arms control treaties.
This is for a very good reason. The simplicity and brevity of this treaty reflect the simple fact that the US and Russia have moved beyond the enmity of the cold war era. The treaty recognizes this fact. It assumes a degree of trust between nations that are no longer on the precipice of war.
March 6, 2003
Sen. Jim Bunning
I believe the level of verification in this treaty is what is needed.
March 6, 2003
T Minus Bushehr
Following news that Russia is to start powering up Iran’s Bushehr nuclear facility on August 21, John Bolton suggested that Israel subsequently has just days left to attack it. This is because once Bushehr goes online, any attack would “almost certainly release radiation into the atmosphere,” implying that Israel will “most unlikely … act militarily after fuel rods are loaded.” Both Bolton and the people at Heritage are worried that Russia’s assistance in bringing the plant online will “represent a major step forward for Iran’s nuclear weapons aspirations”, giving the country a “second route to nuclear weapons.”
Bolton concedes that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities remains unlikely, but pointed out that if Israel was “going to do anything, they certainly wouldn’t be talking about it” – just like before the bombing of Iraqi and Syrian reactors in 1981 and 2007 respectively. However, given the resurgence in speculation on the probability of an Israeli attack, the hawkish nature of Netanyahu’s coalition government, and now even Saudi Arabian media outlets advocating military action, might there be a chance that officials in Jerusalem believe attacking Bushehr is essential?
This depends on whether Israel considers Bushehr to constitute a key element of (what it see’s as) Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Powered by Russian highly enriched uranium (HEU), it is true that when operational, Bushehr will produce plutonium-239, which can ultimately be used to make nuclear weapons. However, the creation of pU-239 is an inevitable by-product of the operation of a nuclear reactor and to assuage any fears that Iran might one day try and use this to create a plutonium based weapon, Russia has stated that it will be reclaiming all of the plant’s spent fuel rods. Although the U.S was initially opposed to Moscow’s involvement in Bushehr, it is for this reason that Washington now finds the powering up of Bushehr as acceptable – and also no doubt because the Russian provided HEU helps challenge Iran’s argument that it needs to produce its own fuel to power its civilian power plants.
Furthermore, Bushehr will also be operating under IAEA safeguards, adding an extra layer of safety (although not to the intrusive levels outlined by the IAEA’s non-obligatory Additional Protocol). As a result, if Iran really did want to one day divert any pu-239 to create a nuclear weapon, both the IAEA and Russian Government would be in a position to call them on it. And in any case, it is unknown if Iran is even close to possessing the technology or capability to extract plutonium from spent reactor fuel rods.
Israel’s attitude towards Bushehr will no doubt be shaped by the Obama administration’s public approval of the plan’s activation. While Israel attacked Syria’s reactor despite private U.S disapproval, Michael Anton is correct to suggest that “this time such an attack would have to take place not merely in spite of an ally’s private objections to the operation but of its public approval of the targeted project.” An attack in this context could thus prove calamitous for Israel-USA relations, something Jerusalem will probably be keen to avoid given the vast military aid it receives from the U.S. Nevertheless, Israel might be more worried about Iran’s intentions and choose to attack anyway.
Indeed, Israel may believe that as Bushehr starts producing pu-239 (enough some say for 30 bombs per year) Iran will become increasingly tempted to master the art of reprocessing in order to facilitate a non-HEU based approach to nuclear weapons production. This might be especially tempting for Tehran given the advanced state of their missile program and the fact that pu-239 allows for smaller, far more powerful warheads than HEU. Israel may also be concerned that although Russia will indeed be collecting spent fuel rods, it can only do so after a several year long cooling process – a time period potentially open to abuse. And as I have pointed out before, the IAEA’s safeguards are hardly watertight, so there is still the possibility that fissile material could be diverted undetected – something that although unlikely, may constitute an unacceptable risk for Israel.
Could Iran one day develop plutonium reprocessing facilities and divert spent fuel rods for nuclear weapon production? Maybe, but this is nothing more than a hypothetical question at the moment. Iran does not does not currently posses this capability; therefore it does not represent a current threat to Israel (who, let us not forget, could deter a nuclear armed Iran with its massive conventional superiority or its second strike nuclear submarine capability). Moreover, the risks associated with any Israeli attack would probably outweigh whatever ‘benefits’ Jerusalem may calculate would result from taking Bushehr out of the picture. Iranian media has already quoted Iran’s defense minister in response to a potential Israeli attack as saying “we may lose a power plant, but the whole existence of the Zionist regime will be jeopardized.” And as an article in The Atlantic outlined last week, any military strike on Iran could lead to a full-scale regional war.
Given the dire consequences of a military strike, it is therefore clear that if Israel really does believe that Bushehr is being developed for weapons use, then, with U.S. support, it should continue to use diplomacy to push Iran to sign up to the Additional Protocol and address the IAEA’s outstanding queries. In addition, more transparency re: its own nuclear program and faithfully attending the 2012 conference on a Middle East free of WMD will also boost Israel’s diplomatic credentials vis-à-vis Tehran.
Can a “Region by Region” Approach Effectively Prevent the Spread of Sensitive Nuclear Technology?
Following an August 3 report in the Wall Street Journal, the arms control blogosphere has been buzzing about a nearly finalized nuclear cooperation agreement between the United States and Vietnam. According to the Journal, and now other outlets including The Guardian and Global Security Newswire , the U.S.-Vietnam deal has considerably weaker proliferation controls than the Obama administration has demanded in the past – specifically, the agreement would allow Vietnam to retain the right to enrich uranium.
The Risks and Benefits of Enrichment
Uranium enrichment technology has both civil and military applications: it can be used to produce fuel for nuclear power plants or fissile material for nuclear weapons. Any country that possesses enrichment facilities would be able to use this technology to jumpstart a weapons program. But any country without enrichment facilities is unable to independently produce nuclear fuel for its reactors and thus required to import fuel for its nuclear energy program.
The U.S.-Vietnam Deal
The terms of the U.S.-Vietnam deal represent a significant break from the Obama administration’s previous efforts to guard against proliferation by preventing the spread of uranium enrichment technology and facilities. In its 2009 cooperation agreement with the United Arab Emirates and in recent negotiations with Jordan, the United States has insisted that the two Middle Eastern countries forgo their right to uranium enrichment as part of any nuclear trade deal. Now the administration is apparently stepping back from this position by failing to insist on similar restrictions in its agreement with Vietnam. Vuong Huu Tan, the director of the Vietnam Atomic Energy Institute, has announced that Vietnam does not intend to enrich uranium, so it is unclear why the U.S. did not insist on a legal backing for this pledge. Accepting weaker terms in an agreement with Vietnam would raise questions about a lack of consistency in U.S. non-proliferation policies and jeopardize past and future attempts by the U.S. government to limit the proliferation of uranium enrichment technology.
The Jordan Case
Vietnam is not the only country that is trying to negotiate a nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States. As reported by the Journal in June, U.S.-Jordan negotiations about a possible nuclear deal stalled specifically because the U.S. insisted on an enrichment ban in the agreement, a provision that the Jordanian government was unwilling to accept. Jordan views enrichment technology as its right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Article IV of the NPT establishes “the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.” The article also states that signatories have the right to the “fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials, and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.” Jordan argues that Article IV gives the country a right to the complete nuclear fuel cycle, including enrichment technology. American officials, however, have refused to agree to Jordanian demands and have insisted that Jordan, like the U.A.E., should renounce its right to uranium enrichment.
A “Region by Region” Approach
When questioned about the reported failure to include an enrichment ban in the U.S.-Vietnam agreement, State Department Assistant Secretary Philip Crowley explained that the U.S. is utilizing a “country-by-country or region-by-region” approach:
CROWLEY: We recognize and we certainly would encourage countries to make the same decision that the UAE has made. At the same time, not every country is going to make that decision. If a country decides to pursue nuclear energy, and a country decides that it chooses to enrich on its own soil, then we would prospectively work with that country; number one, to make sure that their [sic] pursuit of nuclear energy meets all international safeguards; they [sic] work cooperatively with the IAEA. And we believe that that also would provide the kinds of security assurances that we think are important to make sure that any country that pursues nuclear power does not become a potential source of proliferation.
There’s not going to be any – we would like to see the day where there is an international regime and that fewer countries enrich. That is our broad policy goal, but we recognize that a particular approach is going to be different country-by-country or region-by-region.”
This “region by region” approach, however, is problematic for two reasons. First, the Vietnam deal undermines the precedent set by the U.S.-U.A.E. agreement and weakens the global norm against the spread of enrichment technology. As pointed out by Henry Sokolski in the National Review, the U.S.-U.A.E. deal was just a week ago considered the “gold standard” for nuclear cooperation agreements. Now, the U.S. doesn’t have a single standard for nuclear pacts. Instead, by giving Vietnam privileges over the U.A.E. and Jordan, the U.S. is returning to a policy tantamount to dividing the world into “good guys” and “bad guys.” This same philosophy led to the U.S.-India deal, which undermined the NPT and the standards of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Now, the Obama administration appears to be saying that East Asian countries may develop enrichment technology, but countries in the Middle East should not.
Even before the U.S.-Vietnam agreement, Jordan was unhappy with U.S. efforts to restrict the spread of enrichment technology. Khaled Toukan, the head of Jordan’s Atomic Energy Commission, complained to the Journal in June, “we believe in the universality of the NPT. We do not agree on applying conditions and restrictions outside of the NPT on a regional basis or a country-by-country basis.” Heavily dependent on oil and in possession of large uranium reserves, Jordan has strong economic incentives to develop its nuclear energy program. Moreover, Jordan is one of the U.S.’s closest allies in the Middle East. Should the U.S. agree to this deal with Vietnam, Jordan will have further reason to object to the U.S.’s double standard.
Second, if the U.S. is going to employ a region by region approach, is East Asia really the region where we want to allow the spread of sensitive nuclear technology? Yes, the Middle East is one of the most volatile places in the world, but East Asia is far from harmonious. Densely packed with nuclear powers (Russia, China, and North Korea), East Asia is also home to Japan, which already enriches and reprocesses its own nuclear fuel, South Korea, which has been pushing for the right to enrich and reprocess its own fuel, and Taiwan, which twice attempted to develop nuclear weapons. Moreover, East Asia isn’t too far removed from South Asia, which has its own set of competing nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, and at least one potential nuclear wannabe, Burma.
The proliferation of enrichment technology is potentially destabilizing, regardless of where it takes place. But the spread of nuclear energy is not dependent on the spread of enrichment facilities. Instead, the U.S. should continue to insist on an enrichment ban in its nuclear agreements while also including provisions to ensure that countries without enrichment technology have access to an affordable, reliable supply of nuclear fuel. As one of the largest users of nuclear energy in the world and a major nuclear supplier, the United States has the economic and political leverage to shape the growth of the international nuclear energy industry. Assistant Secretary Crowley is right in working toward the goal of “an international regime [where] fewer countries enrich,” but if this regime is ever going to become a reality, it is important that the U.S. stick to its guns on the enrichment ban.