Tag: Nuclear weapons
The Gulf still wants a hug
Even though John Kerry made his pilgrimage to Riyadh and the United Arab Emirates last week, the Gulf is still complaining. Israel gets more face time. Gulf complaints go unheard. The US isn’t sufficiently committed and steadfast. Abdullah al Shayji gripes:
The overture with Iran seems to be heading towards relaxing the crippling sanctions regime, which could embolden a beleaguered Iran. Moreover, the US is also making overtures to the sectarian government in Iraq as Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki was well received in the White House.
This is pretty rich. Easing of sanctions would only happen if Iran freezes its nuclear program. Would the Gulf really prefer war? Or containment of a nuclear Iran? Maliki may be sectarian, but the Gulf monarchies are not? He was so well received in the White House that many here thought he went home chastened and empty handed.
But those are not the real issues. As Professor Shayji puts it:
What worries the GCC states regarding the US Middle East policy is not only over Iran’s nuclear programme, but US lack of concern for GCC’s interests by limiting negotiations over the nuclear issue and not factoring in Iran’s meddling in the GCC affairs. The haste with which US tries to allay the Israelis fears and not the GCC’s is also disconcerting.
This too is pretty rich. Even if I think Prime Minister Netanyahu is way off base in demanding that Iran give up all enrichment, I’d have to regard Israeli fears as more profound and existential than the GCC’s. And anyone in the Gulf who hasn’t understood that Israeli security is first among Middle East issues when it comes to American diplomatic priorities must have slept through the last sixty-five years.
The GCC is right however to be concerned with Iran’s meddling. The US will have to deal with that as well as a host of other issues: support for terrorism in general and Hizbollah in particular, military engagement in Syria, and domestic human rights violations just to name a few. But the nuclear issue comes first because it is the one most threatening to US national security. I’d have expected the Gulf to agree with that priority, not join forces with Netanyahu in resisting any sort of nuclear agreement.
It is striking how comfortable the GCC has gotten with the umbrella of American hegemony. The US has sidelined Iran, the Arab Gulf’s historical antagonist, for decades. President Bush, not the current administration, gave Iran its biggest diplomatic break of modern times with the invasion of Iraq. President Obama has ratcheted up the sanctions in a way that the Gulf should appreciate.
But Iranian isolation is not the natural state of affairs, and it is not one that will persist forever. The Gulf needs to be thinking hard about how it will deal with Iran once it emerges from sanctions and begins to compete again for power, influence and oil market share. A few more pipelines circumnavigating Hormuz would be one attractive option, for example.
I’d have thought that the tens of billions in arms purchases the GCC have made would provide a modicum of self-confidence. If Iran can be prevented from obtaining nuclear weapons, it will be decades before it even comes close to matching the current level of GCC military power. But the GCC seems to wear its armaments like a thawb: more elegant and prestigious than practical.
If the Gulf wants a hug, the best way to get it from Washington today would be to demonstrate that its sympathy with the Syrian uprising can be turned into success both on the battlefield and at the negotiating table. From a Washington perspective, that would mean Gulf countries should cut off support to Sunni extremists and instead strengthen the relative moderates prepared to run a democratic, non-sectarian Syria. That’s a tall order for the Sunni monarchies, but it would get a big hug. Complaining about an agreement that freezes Iran’s nuclear program will not.
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Giving pause
Nuclear talks in Geneva with Iran ended without an agreement and will reconvene November 20. The P5+1 (that’s US, UK, France, China, Russia+Germany) are mostly exuding confidence that an agreement can be reached. The talks did not break down, they paused. What blocked agreement? Reuters reports:
Diplomats said the main stumbling blocks included the status of Iran’s Arak heavy-water reactor of potential use in making bomb-grade plutonium, the fate of Iran’s stockpile of higher-enriched uranium – both acute issues for France – and the extent of relief from trade sanctions demanded by Tehran.
The first two are critical issues for the P5+1. Their purpose is to prevent Iran from accumulating all the material (either highly enriched uranium or plutonium) it needs for a quick or undetected sprint to build nuclear weapons. The third is Iran’s main concern. It desperately needs sanctions relief for its battered economy.
Criticizing from the sidelines is Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu, who wants Iran’s ability to produce plutonium and highly enriched uranium destroyed completely and sanctions lifted only when that ambition is fulfilled. His hostility to an agreement that delivers anything less appears to have motivated France’s hard line in Geneva. While the press is treating this intransigence as a surprise, French President Francois Hollande is on the record saying: Read more
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Peace picks, November 4-8
Apologies for the late posting (DPS):
The upcoming week’s top events:
1. Responding to the Rebalance: ASEAN between China and the US
Monday, November 4 | 12:00pm – 1:30pm
East-West Center, Sixth Floor Conference Room, 1819 L Street NW
An Asia-Pacific Security Seminar featuring:
Mr. Julio Amador III
2013 Asia Studies Visiting Fellow, East-West Center in Washington
Foreign Affairs Research Specialist, Philippines’ Foreign Service Institute
Dr. Charmaine Misalucha (Discussant)
Assistant Professor, De La Salle University in Manila, Philippines
The rebalancing of the United States to Asia in an effort to stem China’s surge in regional leadership has placed the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in a difficult position. While ASEAN recognizes China as one of its most important Dialogue Partners, the regional association’s members have always recognized that the US plays a special role in the Asia Pacific as the guarantor of security. Meanwhile, China and the US are set on a rivalry that, while not officially acknowledged, is apparent to observers in Southeast Asia. Within this context, how is ASEAN as a regional organization dealing with Chinese-American rivalry?
Mr. Julio Amador III will describe regional perspectives about the direction of ASEAN in the context of the US Rebalance. He will discuss the tensions in the South China Sea as the backdrop for the rivalry between China and the US, and ASEAN’s subsequent attempts at autonomy in settling the issue. He will also assess ASEAN’s internal dynamics and describe how member-states attempt to form a regional consensus while maintaining their national strategic interests. While China and the US contend for primacy in the region, ASEAN still has a role to play, but only if it is willing to move beyond the narrow strategic limits set by its member states.
This program will be off-the-record; thank you for your cooperation.
A light luncheon will be served.
Julio Amador III is an Asia Studies Visiting Fellow at the East-West Center in Washington and a Fulbright Scholar at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. He is on leave as a Foreign Affairs Research Specialist at the Center for International Relations and Strategic Studies (CIRSS) of the Philippines’ Foreign Service Institute. He provides policy analysis and strategic advice on ASEAN issues, Southeast Asia security and international relations, and foreign policy to the Department of Foreign Affairs. Mr. Amador has held numerous fellowships in the United States, Europe, and Australia.
Dr. Charmaine Misalucha is currently a US-ASEAN Fulbright Fellow in the School of International Service of American University. She is also an Assistant Professor at De La Salle University in Manila, Philippines, specializing international relations, security studies, and the arms trade. She received her PhD in International Relations from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies of the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
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The other North Korean challenge
I don’t write much about North Korea, because I don’t know a lot about it. But I’m convinced it poses a potentially enormous challenge on two fronts:
- as a nuclear power
- as a collapsed state
Bruce Bennett’s presentation on the second challenge at Heritage Foundation October 17 strikes me as generally well-informed, even if might quarrel on details (I don’t much like the idea of airdropping humanitarian assistance, for example). So I’m posting it here, along with a link to his RAND study on Preparing for the Possibility of a North Korean Collapse. Those who think the United States doesn’t need a capacity to plan for and deal with weak, fragile or collapsed states–in this case in cooperation with South Korea–should take note:
As Bennett points out, the issue is not whether we would want to intervene, but whether we would have to in order to avoid serious risks to our own national security as a result of North Korean collapse. It is clear that any intervention would have to be a combined military/civilian operation.
I am hoping to have a post up soon on the UN-mandated Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Public Hearing, held here at SAIS this week. Human rights violations are a clear warning sign of state collapse.
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Unhappy allies need to carry more burdens
Everyone’s favorite subject this weekend is America’s allies, who are unhappy for many reasons:
- France and Germany don’t like their phones bugged, and Brazil is also in a lather;
- Saudi Arabia wants the Americans to push harder against Syria’s Bashar al Asad and Iran’s nuclear program;
- Israel concurs on Iran and would rather President Obama didn’t insist it talk to the Palestinians;
- the Egyptian military didn’t like the cutoff of some major military equipment;
- President Karzai has not yet agreed to U.S. jurisdiction for troops who commit criminal acts in Afghanistan post-2014.
Everyone found the US government shutdown disconcerting. No one is looking forward to the January budgetary showdown, except maybe Russian President Putin. He likes anything that brings America down a peg.
There are solutions for each of these issues. We’ll no doubt reach some sort of modus vivendi with the Europeans, who won’t want to shut down either their own eavesdropping or America’s. More likely they’ll want us to share, while swearing off Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande’s cell phones. The Brazilians will be harder to satisfy, but they aren’t exactly what I would call an ally either. The Saudis may go off on their own to arm whomever they like in Syria, thus deepening the sectarian conflict there. That could, ironically, increase the prospects for some sort of political settlement at the much discussed but never convened Geneva 2 conference. It is hard to find anyone at this point who seriously opposes the effort to negotiate a settlement of the Iranian nuclear issue. The alternatives (war or containment) are worse. Even Netanyahu has toned down his objections, while unleashing Sheldon Adelson to advocate nuclear war. The Egyptian military doesn’t actually need more Abrams tanks; it has lots in storage. Karzai has convened a loya jirga to approve the continuing American presence in Afghanistan and to share the rap for agreeing to American jurisdiction. Read more
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Untying the Turkish knot
Mort Abramowitz and Eric Edelman published this week a super Bipartisan Policy Center report “From Rhetoric to Reality: Reframing US Turkey Policy.” Mort was US ambassador in Ankara 1989-91 and Eric 2003-5. It doesn’t get much more knowledgeable when it comes to US policy on Turkey than these two. Caveat emptor: Eric is a valued colleague at SAIS (his office is next door to mine) and Mort is a treasured regular lunch partner and occasional co-author.
They argue for something few sitting ambassadors would be keen on, though it seems likely that the current ambassador was at least forewarned if not approving. They want to shift from rhetoric about shared objectives in the Middle East to frank talk (with an Ankara already resenting US policy on Syria, Iran, Egypt, Israel, Palestine and other issues) about Turkey’s domestic situation.
The aim is to keep Turkey moving in a democratic direction, restore its economic vitality, and encourage it to play a leadership role in the region consistent with US policy. As diplomatic propositions go, this is pretty daring:
Practically, this means that Washington should be more open with Ankara about its concerns about issues like press freedom, freedom of assembly, rule of law, and the Turkish government’s increasing sectarianism.
Edelman and Abramowitz view such frank assessments as likely to produce good results and cite chapter and verse of Israel-related occasions on which American bluntness was productive.
The agenda they propose for Washington is an ample one: Read more
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