Posted on 10-8-2003
US
Starting Nuclear Fight
US Neo-cons want war with North Korea and Iran.
by Simon Tisdall, August 9, 2003, The
Guardian
John Bolton (see photo) might be termed an old hand. The US
under-secretary of state for arms control and international
security, a Yale-educated lawyer, has held a string of senior
posts in the state and justice departments. By any yardstick,
he is an experienced if conservative-minded diplomat of some
gravitas who, it must be assumed, knows what he is doing. But
according to an official North Korean statement this week, Bolton
is "human scum".
Even by Pyongyang's astringent rhetorical standards, this is
strong stuff. It constituted a reply in kind to a stunningly
splenetic tirade delivered by Bolton in Seoul three days earlier
that amounted to a fierce, personal attack on Kim Jong-il.
North Korea's leader was a tyrannical despot and extortionist
who "lives like royalty", Bolton said, while hundreds
of thousands of his people were locked up and millions more
endured a life of "hellish nightmare... scrounging the
ground for food in abject poverty". For good measure, Bolton
also attacked the UN for not facing up to its responsibilities
- a familiar theme for students of the Iraq crisis.
The curious thing about this exchange is not so much its intensity
as its timing. Bolton went nuclear, verbally speaking, only
hours before North Korea finally acceded to longstanding US
demands for multilateral talks on its nuclear arms ambitions.
South Korean officials were relieved that the North had not
used Bolton's broadside as an excuse for further prevarication.
But like the rest of us, they were left wondering whether Bolton
had launched a deliberate pre-emptive strike against the nascent
diplomatic process.
This raises a key question, as America's twin confrontations
with North Korea and Iran over nuclear arms accelerate towards
a crunch in the next few weeks. In a nutshell, peaceful, internationally
supportable, diplomatic solutions to both disputes are available.
Their outlines may be clearly discerned; the mechanisms by which
they can be achieved are more or less in place. But does the
US actually want to cut a deal?
The ambiguities clouding US policy towards North Korea date
back to the early days of the administration, when George Bush
put a damper on former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung's
"sunshine policy" of detente with the North. Since
9/11 and Bush's "axis of evil" speech, matters have
just gone from bad to worse.
The planned talks in China, also involving South Korea, Japan
and Russia, are viewed in the region and beyond as a crucial
opportunity to arrest this apparently inexorable downward spiral.
The UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, and others have suggested
that North Korea might initially freeze its nuclear arms programmes
in return for a sort of US non-aggression pact.
But such compromises may not suit the likes of Bolton, Paul
Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith at the Pentagon, and other hardliners,
including perhaps Bush himself - who has professed personal
loathing for Pyongyang's communist leader. For them, it seems,
nothing less than Kim's overthrow will ultimately suffice, although
it may have to wait until a second Bush term.
A former US envoy, James Goodby, warns that Washington must
beware of over-reaching itself. "Many in the Bush administration
want regime change in North Korea and think that slow strangulation
might do it," Goodby wrote in the New York Times. But security
assurances and economic incentives were what was really needed.
"Improving the lot of the North Korean people should be
a fundamental aim."
Such common-sense advice risks being drowned out by the beat
of Washington's ideological war drums. That discord will strain
ties with US regional allies, encourage North Korean paranoia
and miscalculation, and could yet shipwreck any talks on a reef
of mutual distrust, bad faith and hidden agendas.
As usual, secretary of state Colin Powell takes a softer line,
insisting for now at least that the US is not intent on regime
change and rejecting Wolfowitz's claim that the North is teetering
on the edge of economic collapse.
Such assurances may again strike students of the Iraq crisis
as unhappily familiar. Powell is not yet a lame duck but he
is definitely limping after the latest spate of speculation
that he will quit at the 2004 election. Powell may be getting
tired of trying to restrain neo-con knee-jerkers. He surely
does not relish four more years of being stabbed in the back.
The strange, treacherous ways of American diplomacy are also
complicating that other nuclear stand-off, with Iran. A September
deadline now looms, by which time Tehran is told it must accept
"challenge" inspections of its nuclear facilities.
If not, the US may seek UN sanctions and step up unilateral
pressure; military options are not entirely ruled out. Following
Washington's line, and egged on by Israel, Tony Blair is turning
the screw, too, threatening to block an EU trade deal and highlighting
human rights issues.
Like North Korea, the Iranian government is fully aware that
US tactics do not stem from worries about WMD proliferation
alone. But nor does it totally dismiss western concerns. In
fact, Tehran has developed a series of not inflexible negotiating
positions. The question, once again, is whether the US is really
interested in finding solutions.
On the nuclear issue, Iran might swallow the International Atomic
Energy Agency's "additional protocol" if article four
of the non-proliferation treaty, entitling it to acquire "equipment,
materials and scientific and technological information for the
peaceful uses of nuclear energy", were honoured. On the
issue of al-Qaida, Iran is ready to surrender suspected members
if the US will exchange the Mujahedeen terrorists it is harbouring
in Iraq. Even on Palestine, there is just a hint of a future
accommodation. Iran says it supports Iraq's new governing council
and is not involved in attacks on US troops there (for which
the US has indeed produced no evidence). As an earnest of its
intentions, it has offered to supply much-needed electricity
to Iraq - an offer made three weeks ago and to which it has
had no response.
Although, like the Bush administration, Iran speaks with many
voices, it knows it must improve relations with the west if
it is to succeed in building its economy and if the aspirations
of its younger generations are to be met without more trouble
on the streets.
But this, of course, is exactly why some in Washington think
that by hanging tough and raising the stakes, they can eventually
have it all. By continuing and possibly escalating disputes,
US hawks hope not merely to tame the mullahs but to topple them.
This is a potentially disastrous miscalculation, a recipe for
intensifying internal and external strife. It has little to
do with arms control or encouraging civil reform from within,
and a lot to do with imposing the US world view from without.
This is why Iran's heated debate over UN inspections has acquired
a symbolic quality. This is why, as in North Korea, some in
Iran oppose anything that smacks of concessions.
They call it a trap. But we should call it Bolton's first law
of international power politics: keep the other guy guessing;
wear him down. When he gives a little, demand a whole lot more.
Then zap him anyway.
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