Tag: China
Flim flam
President Trump today tweeted:
Donald J. TrumpVerified account@realDonaldTrump2 hours ago
Before taking office people were assuming that we were going to War with North Korea. President Obama said that North Korea was our biggest and most dangerous problem. No longer – sleep well tonight!
Just landed – a long trip, but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office. There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!
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Atlantic alliance shattered, Pacific next stop
Having trashed the G7 summit in Quebec, President Trump is now getting ready to meet with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un on Tuesday. Last week President Trump said
I don’t think I have to prepare very much. It’s about attitude.
He might be right, because he has defined down the goals of the summit:
I think it’s going to be a process. But the relationships are building, and that’s a very positive thing…a beginning and a getting-to-know-you meeting-plus.
While Secretary of Defense Mattis is still declaring the American goal to be “compete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization” (CVID in the trade), the President has retreated from achieving that. Under cover of the furor caused by his temporary cancellation of the meeting, he has lowered the bar. Now he is even saying he’ll know within a minute whether the summit will be successful.
CVID is not going to happen. Kim Jong-un is not giving up his nukes or his missiles, though he may limit the number of the former and the range of the latter. He’ll want in return not just relief from sanctions but also withdrawal of at least some American forces from South Korea. There is simply no better guarantee of his regime than holding on to a limited number of nukes and missiles, which ensure no invasion and no US effort at regime change.
The question is whether those possible limits can simultaneously satisfy the US, South Korea, and Japan. It doesn’t look likely. South Korea and Japan aren’t interested in limiting the range of the missiles, since that decouples their security from the US: the US will feel safe but they won’t. Nor will they be interested in US withdrawal from South Korea, since the American forces there provide a vital tripwire to ensure that the US is prepared to intervene with force if the South is invaded.
There is no way such difficult issues can or should be resolved in a meeting where Seoul and Tokyo are absent. The best Trump can do is to initiate a negotiation that will likely take years to complete. The outcome cannot be nearly as satisfactory as the Iran nuclear deal, which set back Tehran from nuclear weapons and included a permanent commitment to the international safeguards required to prevent any future nuclear weapons program. North Korea is going to remain a nuclear power with significant missile capabilities.
The worst Trump can do is sell out our South Korean and Japanese allies by agreeing to withdraw US troops from Korea and accept Pyongyang’s nuclear status. This cannot be entirely ruled out. The man is desperate for a win and cares not a whit about allies. He admires dictators and likes to break crockery. Kim Jong-un has so far played him like a fiddle. Trump might well be vulnerable to flattery and the prospect of the Nobel Prize the Norwegians will never give him. They are not as dumb as he is.
Trump did serious damage to the Atlantic alliance in the past couple of days. Let’s hope he doesn’t repeat the disaster in the Pacific.
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Peace picks, June 4 – 10
- U.S. – North Korean Summit: Cancelled or Postponed? Tuesday, June 5 | 1:30 pm – 4:30 pm | The Heritage Foundation | Register Here
What are the ramifications of the sudden termination of the planned meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un? What factors led to the cancellation and has the door been permanently closed on a diplomatic solution to the North Korean nuclear problem? Will North Korea abandon its moratorium and resume nuclear and missile tests and escalate tension on the Korean Peninsula. Will there be a resumption of advocacy for a U.S. preventive military attack on North Korea? As Pyongyang, Seoul, Beijing, and Washington engaged in summit diplomacy, Japan had been the neglected partner. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had established the closest relationship with President Trump of any world leader but then seemed ignored during the summit mania. Does the U.S.-North Korea summit cancellation vindicate Abe’s firm approach to Pyongyang or has there been lasting impact on his political strength as well as Japan’s relationship with the United States?
Join us as two panels of distinguished experts discuss these and other topics as well as make recommendations for U.S. policy in the uncertain time ahead. Speakers include Duyeon Kim (Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Korean Peninsula Future Forum), Dr. Lee Sung-Yoon (Kim Koo-Korea Foundation Professor in Korean Studies and Assistant Professor, The Fletcher School, Tufts University), Dr. Sue Mi Terry (Senior Fellow, Korea Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies), Dr. Jeffrey W. Hornung (Political Scientist, The RAND Corporation), James Schoff (Senior Fellow, Asia Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) and Yuki Tatsumi (Co-Director of the East Asia Program and Director of the Japan Program, The Stimson Center).
- The Long Search for Peace in Afghanistan | Thursday, June 7 | 1:30 pm – 4:30 pm | US Institute of Peace | Register Here
Please join the U.S. Institute of Peace on Thursday, June 7 for a multi-panel discussion on practical steps for the search for peace in Afghanistan. This effort has moved to center stage in recent months following President Ashraf Ghani’s late February peace offer to the Taliban, a series of major international conferences that consolidated support for a peace deal, and a wave of pro-peace demonstrations across Afghanistan. Crucial questions nonetheless remain: What it will take to get the Taliban to join peace talks in earnest? What will a prospective peace agreement look like? How does the peace process affect the Afghan and international military campaign?
The event will examine the issue from two crucial perspectives: the top-down effort to reach a political settlement involving the Taliban, and the bottom-up effort to forge peace in local communities. We will feature a distinguished and diverse range of American, Afghan, and other experts who have directly worked on this issue in government, the United Nations, academia, and civil society. They will provide a comprehensive look at an effort that is vital to Afghanistan’s future, but often poorly understood outside a small community of experts. Speakers include Steve Brooking (Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Afghanistan), Laurel Miller (Former State Department Acting Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan), Barnett Rubin (Senior Fellow and Associate Director of the Center for International Cooperation, New York University), Michael Semple (Visiting Professor, Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation and Social Justice, Queen’s University, Belfast), Kate Clark (Director, Afghan Analysts Network) and Erica Gaston (Non-Resident Fellow, Global Public Policy Institute). Moderated by Johnny Walsh (Senior Expert on Afghanistan, US Institute of Peace).
- Colombia’s Choice: Analyzing the First Round of the Presidential Election | Thursday, June 7 | 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm | Inter-American Dialogue | Register Here
On Sunday, May 27, Colombians head to the polls for the first round of a critically important presidential election, the first since a peace accord was signed with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in late 2016. Polls show Iván Duque of the Democratic Center Party with the lead, followed by Gustavo Petro, who heads a leftist coalition. The country remains highly polarized around the terms and implementation of the peace agreement. Combating corruption and curbing drug cultivation and trafficking are key challenges, as responding to the exploding migration crisis in Venezuela. The next government will also have to deal with a tough fiscal situation as it seeks to improve education, health and infrastructure.
The Dialogue is pleased to host a discussion after the first round of the presidential race, to interpret the results and explore what we can expect, should there be a second round on June 17. What is the outlook moving forward? What are the implications of the vote for addressing the country’s wide-ranging and complex peace/security, political, economic and social agendas? Speakers include Catalina Botero (Dean of the Law School at Universidad de los Andes), Juan Carlos Iragorri (Director, Club de Prensa, NTN24) and Peter Schechter (Political commentator and co-host of the Altamar Podcast). Moderated by Michael Shifter (President, Inter-American Dialogue).
- U. S. – Indonesia Relations and the Rise of China | Friday, June 8 | 10:00 am – 11:30 am | The Heritage Foundation | Register Here
The Rise of China is a reality. Its influence – and the opportunity it represents – is being felt from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Southeast Asia, however, is a neighbor. Indonesia, in fact, given Indonesian maritime claims, is right next door. Indonesia has a centuries-long history of dealing with China’s power. How should its government today see the balance between threat and opportunity represented in its rise? How should it make the most of China’s economic contributions to the region’s development? How should it push back on unwelcome initiatives, particularly around issues of maritime security? Where are the intersecting areas of interest with the United States and how should it view a U.S.-China rivalry? What is ASEAN’s role? These are just a few of the questions on the table for this event. Please join us we explore them and many more with our distinguished guests. Speakers include Hon. Rizal Ramli (Former Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and former Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, Republic of Indonesia), Cameron Hume (Chairman, American Indonesian Chamber of Commerce, and former U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia) and Brian Harding (Deputy Director and Fellow, Southeast Asia Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies). Hosted by Walter Lohman (Director, Asian Studies Center).
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Played
The Iran nuclear deal was an exchange: relief from sanctions in exchange for a halt and partial reversal of Iran’s uranium enrichment and plutonium capabilities. While President Obama made it clear the US would no longer actively seek overthrow of the Islamic Republic, there was no guarantee of that policy’s continuity. Nor was there a deal on Iran’s regional behavior, though Obama clearly hoped that would moderate as Iran’s economy recovered from sanctions and its people stopped rallying around the flag and instead sought rising living standards and more foreign contact.
That process had barely begun–with economic protests and criticism of Iran’s foreign adventures–when President Trump withdrew the US from the deal earlier this month. The protests are petering out as Iran seeks some way of continuing the nuclear deal with Europe, Russia, and China.That will be difficult because US “secondary” sanctions will force most major European companies to abandon business with Iran. But so far at least the EU seems determined to find a way. There is no reason to believe that Moscow, Beijing, and importantly New Delhi (India is a major importer of Iranian hydrocarbons) will not find a way of continuing to do business with Tehran.
Secretary Pompeo has announced the US list of demands to renew negotiations, with the aim of full diplomatic recognition, which is code for no more efforts to overthrow the regime. No one thinks Iran will even begin thinking about meeting those conditions. The US tried for decades to torpedo the Islamic Republic. There is no reason to believe the Trump Administration’s efforts in that regard will strike fear into the hearts of the ayatollahs. Quite to the contrary: the Supreme Leader thrives on American hostility. Trump is doomed to failure in dealing with Iran: either the nuclear deal will be maintained because the Europeans find a way to defy US sanctions, or Tehran will return to pursuing all the technology it needs to build and launch nuclear weapons.
He is heading in the same direction with North Korea. Once again, he is offering guarantees of regime survival and economic prosperity in exchange for “denuclearization.” The trouble is both National Security Adviser Bolton and Vice President Pence have hinted that without an agreement the US will pursue a Libya option, which the North Koreans interpret not unreasonably as Kim Jung-un meeting the same fate as Muammar Qaddafi, who was slaughtered after giving up his rudimentary nuclear program by Libyan rebels who had Western support. Not to mention one other difficulty: Kim is one of the most brutal dictators on earth. Does the US really want to be guaranteeing his permanence in power? Trump obviously doesn’t mind, any more than he minds offering the Islamic Republic the same deal.
Of course Kim would have no reason to believe any US guarantees, even with an American ambassador in Pyongyang. The change in US approaches to Iran and North Korea between Obama and Trump as well as the Trump Administration’s incoherence and inconsistency would make even a fool hesitate to rely on Washington. Kim is no fool. He will do nothing irreversible to his nuclear and missile programs, knowing full well that Trump can guarantee nothing. So when he yesterday blew up at least part of his country’s nuclear testing facilities in front of Western TV crews, you can be sure whatever was destroyed was now worthless to him.
Kim will propose a phased approach to “denuclearization.” If the phases include giving up his existing nuclear weapons, that will only be at the end of a long process, which he can ensure will never be reached. In the meanwhile, Kim will achieve many of his objectives. He has already put himself on a par with the President of the United States. Any early meeting, next month or thereafter, will confirm his equal status and legitimacy, both internationally and domestically.
While mumbling about a possible postponement, Trump appears desperate for a meeting to give him a chance to claim his first foreign policy success. Hence his touting rumors of a Nobel Prize that the Norwegians will not be interested in giving him. The North Koreans know a sucker when they see him. Kim is playing Trump, successfully.
PS: Somebody got Trump smart. Less than an hour after I published this, he withdrew from the Dotard/Rocket Man Summit. That was the best he could do: he was in way over his head.
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Balderdash
Secretary of State Pompeo today tried to fill the gaping hole of Iran strategy, which the Trump Administration has neglected despite its frequent Tehran-bashing. Here are the American objectives Pompeo outlined:
First, Iran must declare to the IAEA a full account of the prior military dimensions of its nuclear program, and permanently and verifiably abandon such work in perpetuity.
Second, Iran must stop enrichment and never pursue plutonium reprocessing. This includes closing its heavy water reactor.
Third, Iran must also provide the IAEA with unqualified access to all sites throughout the entire country.
Iran must end its proliferation of ballistic missiles and halt further launching or development of nuclear-capable missile systems.
Iran must release all U.S. citizens, as well as citizens of our partners and allies, each of them detained on spurious charges.
Iran must end support to Middle East terrorist groups, including Lebanese Hizballah, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Iran must respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi Government and permit the disarming, demobilization, and reintegration of Shia militias.
Iran must also end its military support for the Houthi militia and work towards a peaceful political settlement in Yemen.
Iran must withdraw all forces under Iranian command throughout the entirety of Syria.
Iran, too, must end support for the Taliban and other terrorists in Afghanistan and the region, and cease harboring senior al-Qaida leaders.
Iran, too, must end the IRG Qods Force’s support for terrorists and militant partners around the world.
And too, Iran must end its threatening behavior against its neighbors – many of whom are U.S. allies. This certainly includes its threats to destroy Israel, and its firing of missiles into Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It also includes threats to international shipping and destructive – and destructive cyberattacks.
This giant wish-list is to be achieved by “the strongest sanctions in history.”
I certainly understand why the Administration wants these things. But sorry, but no way. There is no reason at all to believe that China, Russia, or India will join in those sanctions, which means Iran will be able to export oil to its main customers and obtain required technology–admittedly not the world’s best–from one of the world’s largest oil and gas producers. Europe is also moving to set up mechanisms to circumvent any secondary US sanctions by avoiding the US financial system. That’s been tried before without much success, but this time there are giant incentives to make it work so that European companies can deal with Iran.
Pompeo also said, apropos of uranium enrichment:
So we’re not asking anything other than that Iranian behavior be consistent with global norms, global norms widely recognized before the JCPOA. And we want to eliminate their capacity to threaten our world with those nuclear activities.
This is just false. There is no global norm against enrichment, which can be done by dozens of countries that aren’t pursuing nuclear weapons.
And he openly appealed for regime change, strangely suggesting it should come from the top:
Iran’s leaders can change all of this if they choose to do so. Ali Khamenei has been supreme leader since 1989. He will not live forever, nor will the Iranian people abide the rigid rules of tyrants forever. For two generations, the Iranian regime has exacted a heavy toll on its own people and the world. The hard grip of repression is all that millions of Iranians have ever known.
Now is the time for the supreme leader and the Iranian regime to summon the courage to do something historically beneficial for its own people, for this ancient and proud nation.
Pompeo concluded with a bizarre appeal to Iran based on Administration policy vis-a-vis North Korea, which is visibly failing:
If anyone, especially the leaders of Iran, doubts the President’s sincerity or his vision, let them look at our diplomacy with North Korea. Our willingness to meet with Kim Jong-un underscores the Trump administration’s commitment to diplomacy to help solve the greatest challenges, even with our staunchest adversaries. But that willingness, that willingness has been accompanied by a painful pressure campaign that reflects our commitment to resolve this challenge forever.
The US would need virtually universal support from others to do even one-tenth of what Pompeo has outlined. The goals are clear. The means are inadequate, based on an over-estimate of US power vis-a-vis both Iran and North Korea. Balderdash.
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North Korea bites back
Here, via @JChengWSJ, is North Korea’s statement on the prospective Summit between Presidents Trump and Kim:
This tirade is aimed not at Trump but at Bolton, who over the weekend cited the “Libya model,” by which he seems to have meant the access Qaddafi provided to his nuclear and chemical weapons programs when he committed to abandoning them. But of course the North Koreans remember what happened to Qaddafi thereafter. They are trying to signal to Trump that his hawkish National Security Adviser is not with the program, which has to include Kim Jong-un’s survival, hoping that Trump will throw “regime change” Bolton under the bus.
Bolton may be what provoked Pyongyang’s ire, but the statement is clear enough on other issues: it rejects the standard American versions of what “denuclearization”means as well as the notion that North Korea can be bought off with economic benefits, an idea Secretary of State Pompeo has been touting. It essentially says that Washington needs to end its belligerence towards North Korea, possibly by removing troops from South Korea as well as signing a peace treaty formally ending the Korean war, without clarifying precisely what Pyongyang is prepared to provide in return, but the implication is some sort of limit on, but not abandonment of, its nuclear weapon and missile programs. The zero option is out, the North Koreans are saying.
This is far short of what the US has wanted, and far short of what it had achieved in the Iran nuclear deal that Washington has abrogated. The North Korean statement, however, was made only in the name of a vice minister of foreign affairs, which is far from the top of the hierarchy. There is certainly the possibility that Kim will be more forthcoming at a summit.
But I wouldn’t bet on it. Just the fact of the Rocket Man/Dotard Summit is an enormous “get” for North Korea, as it puts Kim on an equal footing with the US President, confirming the North Korean leader’s legitimacy both domestically and internationally.
Kim needs a successful summit only if he needs sanctions relief. That is not yet clear. A lot depends on whether China and Russia are prepared to keep tightening the screws. Their annoyance with US withdrawal from the Iran deal, Moscow’s peeve at US sanctions, and Beijing’s concern about bilateral trade issues will all factor in to their willingness to continue the united front against North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
Trump and Bolton are nowhere near Kim’s diplomatic league. Their skills were honed on Fox TV, where they rarely face any opposition. They are used to saying what they feel like and having everyone nod yes. Kim knows how to bite back.
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