Nuclear news, good and bad

Trouble, progress, and contradictions of nuclear proportions this past Sunday.

Good
North Korea apparently has agreed to nuclear shutdown, says respectable US envoy Christopher Hill. This follows the closure of one of the despotic republic's reactors earlier this year.


Bad
Iran is moving forward with its nuclear plans, even though the IAEA reports conflict with 'official' statements about how far the Islamic republic really is in the development of nuclear weapons — oops, I mean totally peaceful civilian energy (of course). The announcement that Iran is operating 3,000 centrifuges followed an IAEA statement saying Iran has been cooperating.

Methinks Ahmedinejad's bark is far worse than his bite. How could Iran be slowing down, as the IAEA insists, if it is making the rapid progress its president speaks of? Ahmedinejad, who is, I might add, not actually at the top of Iran's hierarchy (even though he's president), remains defiant to UN sanctions and pressure from the West. He is losing support.

The worst move a foreign state could make (*cough*, *cough* Israel and America) could make would be to attack Iran militarily. Study after study has shown that bombing Iran would be counter-productive, would only increase hate of America abroad, and would empower Ahmedinejad and radical Iranians. It's one of the stupidest things a western regime — or Israel — could do right now. Iran is a threat, but we dealt with North Korea diplomatically, didn't we? It tales patience.

N Korea... gone good?

...Well, not good per se, but definitely better than it was a few months ago. The world was in shock after North Korea tested its first ever nuclear weapon — though the specific details are skewed (i.e. everyone says a different thing about how the tests went, if there were any). At any rate, things did not look good. Somewhere along the road America stuck its tail between its legs and started working more closely with the international community, and China in particular, to try to defuse the North Korean nuke situation. The Bush administrations nearly militant, cowboy diplomacy was not appropriate in this situation (or most others, for that matter...). US envoy Christopher Hill did a good job; it appears that diplomacy and cooperation — not as much unilateral war — works after all.

The North Koreans, impoverished and poor, have long been in isolation. China is the only they can turn too, but China worries that a collapse of the authoritarian state would spark a mass exodus into China, thus hurting its infrastructure and economy. After the nuke tests, a defiant as ever North Korea lost much of the foreign aid that keeps it from imploding. As negotiations inched forward the N Koreans steadily brought in the benefits as the international community conceded that to secure and eventually shut down the nuclear program they would need to give benefits — whether fuel or food — to the Stalinist pariah state, officially known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, quite possibly the most factually-incorrect name of any nation-state on the planet.

The worry was not that N Korea would use the nuclear weapons, but that it would sell the resources and technologies to, say, Al Qaeda. Because of the semi-developed state of the nuclear program, North Korea has always been a bigger threat than the showy Iran, which has more ties to the outside world, not to mention resources. A February deal was the result of these negotiations.

So, you might be asking yourself, why all this background information? Well, because another major development in the nuclear diplomacy between North Korea and others is upon us. Just recently the process appeared to be stalled following some wrangling between the United States and N Korea over a frozen bank account in Macau. After that was cleared up the next step was for North Korea to begin shutting down its nuclear reactor(s). Now...

UN inspectors have begun verifying that North Korea has really closed down its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, the top US nuclear envoy has said.

Christopher Hill's comments come a day after Pyongyang told Washington it had shut the reactor.

North Korea's announcement was welcomed by both the US and South Korea.

North Korea agreed to close the reactor in February in return for economic aid. Under the deal, Pyongyang got its first heavy fuel oil shipments on Saturday.

The nuclear team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived in North Korea on Saturday to start the Yongbyon inspection.

If confirmed, the shut-down would be the first stage in disabling the North's nuclear programme.
...
N KOREA NUCLEAR DEAL
N Korea to "shut down and seal" Yongbyon reactor, then disable all nuclear facilities
In return, will be given 1m tons of heavy fuel oil
N Korea to invite IAEA back to monitor deal
Under earlier 2005 deal, N Korea agreed to end nuclear programme and return to non-proliferation treaty
N Korea's demand for light water reactor to be discussed at "appropriate time"
...
Mr Hill has emphasised that the closure of the Yongbyon reactor is only the first step in decommissioning North Korea's nuclear programme.

He has said he expects a full list of the country's nuclear facilities within months - as agreed in the February deal.
...
The participating countries - South and North Korea, Russia, Japan, the US - are expected to negotiate the details of the next phase of the North's decommissioning process, namely the declaration of its nuclear programme and disabling the facilities.

North Korea isn't expected to really "up the ante", as one Columbia University expert said (qtd. from an interview on the BBC World Service), but it may look like it wants more because the February diplomatic deal with the N Koreans was "incomplete". It was hard to get all parties to agree on some essential requirements, so the deal ended up having holes in it. (Nonetheless it's better to have it than not.) As it stands the North Koreans really aren't getting much from the West in this deal. However they are complying and working towards shutting down their nuclear devises, as per the deal. We need to look beyond just shutting down the nuclear facilities, said the expert, focusing in the larger picture of totally disabling them so the nuclear program cannot be restarted with a flick of a switch — especially considering the inevitable instability in Kim Jong-il's nation. Just like in the case of Pakistan and Iran, extremists and terrorists cannot get their hands on this nuclear material, but state instability makes it all the more dangerous that they could. Unlike even the most renegade state, terrorists won't hesitate to use nuclear weapons.

By any means the supposed shutting down of the Yongbyon reactor is a triumph for diplomacy and a testing example for future cases of nuclear diplomacy, like the one that may develop more seriously with Iran. Any kind of precedent his helpful; hopefully it won't be needed. Hint to world leaders: this is as good a time as ever to talk about nuclear nonproliferation and push it on a global scale, stop being so hypocritical on the issue — yes I'm talking to you, major powers —, and emphasize that often slow and steady, i.e. diplomacy, often wins the race.


On a totally different note, In Perspective won the "Super Saturday" Blog of the Day award.

The Iran nuke story continues...

Not only is there drama between the West and Iran over Iraq, but also over Iran's nuclear program (Wikipedia). This little dance has been going on for years, with the main parties being the United States, United Kingdom, and the rest of the UN Security Council, Germany, the UN itself (IAEA), and, of course, on the other side of the room, Iran. Developments in the news on the Iranian program and the western response have come and gone over the years, but there is some new news now...

Washington Post:

Facing the prospect of broader international sanctions, Iran's president and national security chief on Sunday offered to resume negotiations over their country's nuclear program and eased up on some of the contentious rhetoric of the past, including threats to destroy Israel.

In Munich, Ali Larijani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, briefly met with European diplomats for the first time since talks collapsed in September and said Iran was willing to return to formal discussions.

He also said his country had "no intention of aggression against any country," adding that Iran "posed no threat to Israel" in particular, despite past vows from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to wipe Israel "off the map."

Meanwhile in Tehran, Ahmadinejad also said that Iran was willing to resume negotiations, although both he and Larijani rejected a condition for talks set by the U.N. Security Council that Iran first freeze its uranium enrichment program. "We are prepared for dialogue but won't suspend our activities," Ahmadinejad said.

In an address commemorating the 28th anniversary of the Islamic revolution that overthrew the shah of Iran, Ahmadinejad said his government had made recent progress in its nuclear development but did not give specifics. Some diplomats and analysts had expected him to announce that Iran had made a breakthrough in its efforts to enrich uranium.

U.S. and European officials expressed doubt about the sincerity of Iran's stated willingness to talk. "Offering to negotiate but saying suspension's off the table raises a real question about the sincerity of what he said," U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert M. Kimmitt told reporters in Germany after Larijani's appearance at the Munich Conference on Security Policy, an annual gathering of top defense officials and diplomats from around the world.

In Paris, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said it would be "unacceptable" to hold negotiations unless Iran first agrees to freeze its nuclear activities. "We have to be exceedingly clear and very rigorous on this proposition," he said.
...
Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful energy purposes, but U.S. and European officials say Tehran is pushing to develop atomic weapons in violation of international treaties.

On Friday, the International Atomic Energy Agency suspended some technical aid to Iran, which is under a Feb. 21 deadline from the Security Council to stop enriching uranium or face more international sanctions.
...
Larijani also said Iran was a force for regional stability in the Middle East and had no designs on any of its neighbors, including Iraq and Israel. "We pose no threat, and if we are conducting nuclear research and development, we are no threat to Israel," he said.

Instead, Larijani blamed the United States for bringing chaos to the Middle East and South Asia, noting that it had invaded two of Iran's neighbors, Iraq and Afghanistan. He echoed some of the criticism leveled a day earlier in Munich by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who harshly accused the United States of making the world more dangerous than at any point during the Cold War.

On the Putin topic, see this post.

In addition, the European Union is toughening its approach on Iran by setting sanctions. At least they remain open to talks, something the US should do with Iran on both the important topics of Iraq and nukes.

Keep in mind Ahmadinejad is not doing so hot politically, and the government, part-democracy, part-theocracy, is divided on the nuclear situation.

Funny how this segway has led from Iran, Iraq, and the US to Iran, their nuclear program, and the West, but there are more developments on North Korea, its nukes, and the West also — more on that soon. Whereas Iran's nuclear program is in relatively early stages, North Korea's is more advanced (remember the missile tests?) and they are less economically lucky as Iran, meaning they are more dangerous with nukes, using them as leverage and selling technology to harmful forces (terrorists, rogue states, etc.). Iran, on the other hand, has less of an authoritarian government as North Korea, does have something to loose, has wealth, its oil, and other factors making North Korea certainly more serious than Iran — at least on the nuclear weapons topic. Iran also has plenty of young people who probably do not want to be totally blocked off from the rest of the world, all North Korea has is a maniacal leader and millions of starving civilians.

It all comes down to: the world does not need a nuclear-armed Iran — or another nuclear power period — but it certainly doesn't need another Iraq catastrophe either, especially one spearheaded by the current US president's administration.

technorati tags: iran, iran+nuclear+program, iran+nukes, news, politics, ahmadinejad, north+korea, nukes, IAEA