| Submit your comments on this article |
| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| US shift on Iran draws on Libyan, North Korean experiences |
| 2006-06-02 |
| From the Financial Times, so we can get some idea of what the Brussels political class is thinking. In the process of deciding on a big policy shift that would offer Iran the chance of engaging in a broad dialogue – potentially the first since the 1979 Islamic revolution – the Bush administration has reflected on two sets of similar yet contrasting experiences: North Korea and Libya. The North Korean experience is regarded by some in the administration as something just short of disastrous, while Libya is touted as the model for Iran to follow. The same US officials who were opposed to making concessions to North Korea – John Bolton, now ambassador to the UN, Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, and Dick Cheney, vice-president – also argued against engaging Iran. In 1994, the Clinton administration signed the “agreed framework” with North Korea, a deal that on the surface looks remarkably similar to what is believed to be on offer for Iran. North Korea was to freeze the operation and construction of nuclear reactors believed to be part of a covert weapons programme. In exchange an international consortium would provide two proliferation-resistant light water reactors, and North Korea would get fuel oil on top. Pyongyang and Washington also committed themselves to moving towards the normalisation of relations, a process that led to a visit to North Korea by Madeleine Albright, then secretary of state, in 2000. But after President George W. Bush came to office in 2001, the US said intelligence came to light suggesting that North Korea had been cheating all along by pursuing a secret uranium enrichment programme. The US claims that North Korea acknowledged as much in 2002. North Korea denies that but expelled UN inspectors later that year, restarted the Yongbyon reactor, processed plutonium that had been in storage for years and claimed it had developed a nuclear weapons capability. With great reluctance and under pressure from China, Russia, South Korea and Japan, the Bush administration agreed to take part in six-party talks. The US has insisted it will not reward bad behaviour but in effect has been dragged into the process of offering North Korea further inducements to dismantle its nuclear programme. On Thursday Pyongyang invited Christopher Hill, Washington’s top negotiator in the talks on the crisis, to visit for discussions, saying the US must prove its commitment to resolving the impasse. Announcing the policy shift on Iran two days ago, Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state, made a fleeting comparison with North Korea. But later in the day, a senior US official, who did not want to be identified, sought to make the comparison with Libya – a model of how the initiative could succeed, “in which they agreed to give up their WMD and realised a good outcome”. “We have done this before successfully,” he said. The US entered secret talks in 2003 over ways of dismantling Libya’s nuclear weapons programme and Tripoli announced its capitulation in December 2004, having been assured by the US and UK that “regime change” was off the agenda. Last month, the US and Libya restored diplomatic relations – to the horror of Mr Bush’s neoconservative supporters who now fear the same sort of accommodation with Iran. Some diplomats believe there have been secret back channels to Iran to pave the way for the US about-turn on talks. They expect a period of objections and counter-proposals from Iran but eventual acceptance of the principle of having the US joining the table. Some see the Libyan experience as testimony to the combined powers of coercion and diplomacy. But Libya had already been weakened by a tough international embargo imposed after the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and was much more isolated than Iran is now as a big supplier of oil to Asia and Europe. As Ms Rice admitted a year ago, talking to Iran would serve to legitimise the regime. The US ultra-nationalists agree and have been pushing instead for regime change as the ultimate goal. But with the US military bogged down in Iraq and no viable Iranian opposition in sight, the US is handicapped. The gap between the US and Iran remains huge, even if Iran does agree to suspend enrichment while trying out negotiations. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #2 Speaking of circle-jerks, LOL, the term certainly applies to this pseudo-analysis. Baker's opinion piece today is much more relevant, IMHO. |
| Posted by: Ulart Thomotch5445 2006-06-02 05:48 |
| #1 Yes, we all know how well the other circle jerks worked out. |
| Posted by: Captain America 2006-06-02 01:20 |