The Axis of Evil Goes Nuclear

The Axis of Evil Goes Nuclear

This applies to far more than parenting skills. The U.S. military, for example, has credibility in this region, which the EU forces and the UN lost long ago because their actions did not match their rhetoric. Politicians the world over lose the trust and confidence of the electorate because of far too many promises unkept and commitments unmet. Unfortunately, the United States has fallen into this same trap with regard to Iran and North Korea.

On January 29, 2002 in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, President Bush gave the annual State of the Union Speech. In it he cited Iran, Iraq, and North Korea and said "States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred….I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."

The tragedy about all of what followed is that the dangers of nuclear proliferation are real and that making it a centerpiece of the U.S. national security strategy was the right thing to do. The problem is that President Bush and his Administration decided to bring down a notorious dictator (Saddam Hussein) as the first test case of this new strategy. When no weapons of mass destruction were subsequently found, it made it far harder to develop any international consensus to deal with the two countries who actually are significant proliferation threats: Iran and North Korea. Moreover, the U.S. ability to take the necessary military lead in any such effort has been eliminated by the quagmire, which is Iraq.

The United States Administration has followed a strange political strategy in dealing with both Iran and North Korea: rejecting "unilateral diplomatic efforts" and refusing to deal with either one directly (not wanting to "reward" these states or give them credibility by talking with them); engaging in ineffectual and time-consuming multilateral diplomacy (the Group of Six Nations in the case of North Korea and the EU-led initiative in the case of Iran); and at the same time making aggressive statements which time and again have proven to be without teeth.

Besides the initial State of the Union speech, the U.S. said early this summer that a test of long-range missiles by North Korea was unacceptable. Yet nothing happened when they did just that. Recently, the U.S. said that North Korean testing of a nuclear bomb would be unacceptable. A week later North Korea carried out its first test.  This past Wednesday the President said directly that it was unacceptable for North Korea to have nuclear weapons and that he was not ready to live with that outcome. The United States has used identical rhetoric in the case of Iran, including in the National Security Doctrine it released last year. Talk of military options surrounding Iran have been all over the U.S. media for over a year now.

This is remarkably dangerous. Both North Korea and Iran have sensed that our threats are hollow and they have both brazenly stated their intent to continue their nuclear problems. There have been and will be no strong repercussions. Which tells not only them, but also other rogue and undemocratic countries around the world that standing up to the United States is not as dangerous or counter-productive as it once was. The United States is losing its ability to influence the actions of countries all over the world. There is also the danger that countries will miscalculate, as Saddam Hussein did in invading Kuwait, and assume that our national security interests can be ignored completely.

The consequences of both Iran and North Korea going nuclear are serious. First of all, it radically changes the balance of power in Asia and the Middle East and will almost assuredly spur neighboring countries in both regions to develop their own nuclear arsenals. 

Secondly, North Korea is sufficiently crazy to actually decide to use its weapons. This is a regime which planted a bomb in Burma which was designed to kill the entire South Korean cabinet; which kidnapped scores of innocent civilians from the beaches of Japan and forced them into a life as language instructors for generations of North Korean spies; which apprehended a U.S. intelligence ship in international waters, boarded it, and held the crew for about a year; which brazenly counterfeits hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars each year and routinely sends armed saboteurs to South Korea. 

Thirdly, North Korea has carried out terrorism itself on a routine basis and Iran is an open supporter of such terrorist groups as Hezbollah and Hamas. North Korea has a history of selling any and all weapons and similar technology to anyone with cash. It is hard to imagine that either country in possession of nuclear weapons would not sooner or later pass on the weapons or technology to terrorist groups or other rogue regimes.

The North Korean problem could be solved in one day if China wished to do so. It provides a lifeline of political, military, and economic support vital to the North Koreans. That China refuses to take such a step is an ominous sign for future cooperation.

Similarly, a strong stand by Russia would almost certainly lead the Iranians to back off. That this is not happening also is a precursor to future problems.  The dilemma we face is that our relationships with both these countries (Russia and China) are extremely delicate and easily could deteriorate significantly. Making Iran and North Korea a major test of the relationship could bring that about. Consequently, we have not taken the sort of tough line with either Russia or China that could lead to changes of course in Iran and North Korea. Moreover, we have not effectively worked at building international coalitions to deal with either of these problems. In part because this Administration is significantly weak at so doing and in part because it is extremely difficult to do so in light of our Iraqi debacle.

One of the other challenges to effective U.S. action is that the U.S.  truly loathes both regimes and wants nothing more than regime change in both countries. By making this so clear and by taking regime-change action in both Afghanistan and Iraq, it helped to convince both Iran and North Korea that development of a nuclear weapon was the best chance they had to prevent similar steps against their own countries. But it has also made it difficult for the U.S. to talk with either of the two governments in question in hopes of modifying their behavior. Given all the options, this is the least bad alternative and the only one that seems capable of bringing about a positive result. To do so, however, would mean confronting waves of domestic critics in the United States and this Administration is unlikely to do that. So the policy will be to "stay the course" and bluster ineffectively from time to time about the unacceptability of the actions of these two countries. Meanwhile, their programs will continue unimpeded and the United States will continue to look more and more like a paper tiger.