Will Iran, Korea really back off nukes?
Some laud moves with the two nations. Others are suspicious.
from the July 18, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
Advantage of today
But that does not minimize the clear advantage of a closed Yongbyon reactor today, supporters say. Up until last weekend, the nuclear plant was operating while negotiations sputtered along.
"The fundamental flaw of the previous situation was that North Korea was operating a reactor that was producing plutonium while the six-party talks fiddled and dawdled," says Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington. "I'm not satisfied either, but the fact is that North Korea is no longer producing fissile materials," he adds. "And it makes a difference if you have material for six to nine weapons, or for 69."
As for Iran, Mr. Kimball says it is clear the Iranian government is trying to take steps that will stall movement toward a third UN Security Council resolution that presumably would entail even tougher international sanctions against Iran.
The key issue with Iran remains getting it to halt uranium enrichment, Kimball says, and for that he advocates what he acknowledges will be difficult negotiations. "Any agreement will have to have some kind of security assurances, something that gives Iran a clear vision of how [giving up uranium enrichment] can lead to better relations with the West," he says.
That approach has the advantage of tapping into Iranian public opinion. A new poll of Iranians conducted on behalf of Terror Free Tomorrow, a Washington organization favoring public engagement with populations susceptible to extremism, found that while a slight majority of Iranians favor their government developing a nuclear weapon, 4 of 5 Iranians favor opening up their country's nuclear program to full inspections and to renouncing possession of nuclear weapons if it is accompanied by outside economic assistance and international trade, in particular with the US.That is all well and good, detractors say, but Iran is not really a democracy with a government that responds to public opinion. For critics of the current course, like the AEI's Bolton, the better option for a safer world would have been regime change, at least in the case of Iran, and an end to the Kim Jong Il regime.
Bolton says lost time and progress by both regimes in their nuclear programs make that option more difficult. But he says military action to take out Iran's nuclear sites, as difficult as that would be, still must be considered. "Admittedly, it's not an attractive option – until you look at the alternative, which is for Iran to possess nuclear weapons."
But Cirincione maintains that, as hard and unpredictable as negotiations with Pyongyang and Tehran may be, the prospects are better than under what he calls the nonproliferation-through-regime-change model. "We went to war with Iraq for the purpose of preventing an imminent nuclear threat. The path we're now on with North Korea won't be easy," he adds, "but it's a lot easier than Iraq."
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