Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=05/22/2005

TYPE=ON THE LINE

NUMBER=1-01676

TITLE=Iran and North Korea - Nuclear Threat?

INTERNET=Yes

EDITOR=OFFICE OF POLICY - 203-4532

CONTENT=This show broadcast Sunday.

THEME: UP, HOLD UNDER AND FADE

Host: Iran and North Korea, are they nuclear threats? Next, On the Line.

Host: The radical Islamic regime in Iran and the communist dictatorship in North Korea are both threatening to move forward with their nuclear programs. Iran has said it will restart its effort to enrich uranium, which can be used to build nuclear bombs. If it does, the United States and the European Union may ask the United Nations Security Council to take up the case of Iran.

North Korea claims that it has taken 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods from a nuclear reactor in Yongbyon. The rods contain plutonium that can be used for nuclear weapons. Even before that announcement, Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned that North Korea had enough material to build six nuclear bombs.

Some observers warn that trying to negotiate with either the clerical rulers in Tehran or the Kim Jong Il dictatorship in Pyongyang will not stop their drive to acquire a nuclear arsenal. That only democratic change in both countries will peacefully end the emerging threat. How severe is that threat? What are the prospects of internal reform in Iran and North Korea? What should the U-S and its allies do?

I'll ask my guests: Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy; L. Gordon Flake, executive director of The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation; and joining us by phone from London, Alireza Nourizadeh, director of the Center for Arab-Iranian Studies. Welcome, thanks for joining us today.

Host: Frank Gaffney, what's the status of negotiations with Iran right now? And who's doing the negotiating?

Gaffney: This changes hour-by-hour, but the basic thrust of it is the three European nations that have undertaken to try to broker a deal with Tehran -- Britain, Germany and France -- are still engaged in a sort of diplomatic dance with, I think, a pretty clearly intractable Iranian regime. There have been recent indications that talks are at an end and at least the British government has indicated that it would in turn now agree with the United States to take this matter up before the U-N Security Council. The last I heard, they were back scheduling another round of talks. And this is more or less what has been happening, that one or the other parties makes some sort of pronouncement that it's over, and they're back at the negotiating table in short order. So, I think we'll see more negotiations, even as the Iranians continue to build nuclear capabilities and ultimately nuclear weapons.

Host: Gordon Flake, what's your sense of these negotiations. Is there any expectation that they will actually result in Iran not having a nuclear capacity?

Flake: I think one of the interesting comparisons that can be drawn is between Iran and the situation in North Korea, because they are at very different stages in the process. Iran is at a point where they deny having any intent towards developing nuclear weapons. They claim this is all part of a peaceful program, something that North Korea claimed ten years ago. And so, therein lies kind of the real challenge that underlines a negotiated approach to Iran, is you already have kind of a model of sorts through what we've gone through with North Korea already in the last decade.

Host: Alireza Nourizadeh, is the status of things with Iran where the negotiations were with North Korea ten years ago? That is, an agreement or not an agreement that then leads to a covert program over years that undermines the very agreement?

Nourizadeh: Yes, unfortunately, the Iranians, they've played a very clever game for the past three years with the international community, with Europeans, with the International Atomic Energy organization, with --.

Host: I'm afraid it sounds like we just lost Alireza Nourizadeh's phone connection. We'll get him back with any luck. But in the meantime, Frank Gaffney, let me ask you, you mentioned that the European negotiators, and the U-S have both said that if Iran backs off its previous pledge to not resume enriching uranium, that it will be taken up with the U-N Security Council. And yet we had this week, Kofi Annan warning against bringing this to the Security Council. And he said, I think were the Iran nuclear issue to be referred to the council, the members would have to be keenly aware that any decision they make will set a precedent. Their action or inaction will have a great impact on future cases and on our efforts to promote nuclear nonproliferation. And he also said, Not everything has to come before the Security Council. We as an organization don't claim a monopoly on resolving all these questions. If they can be resolved elsewhere, we applaud it. We hear so much about how things should come to the U-N, be resolved at the U-N. Why is the U-N in this case saying, No, no, don't bring it here?

Gaffney: Listen, this is a hard thing. We're going, I think, to confront a nuclear-armed Iran -- we already have a nuclear-armed North Korea -- in the not-to-distant future. I think, clearly, the Iranian regime is playing for time. They doubtless are signally both directly and through patrons, like communist China and Russia and perhaps others that if it were to be brought to the U-N Security Council, it's not clear the Security Council would in fact act, that it might be vetoed, or more likely, any resolution would simply be sort of stonewalled. And this does give rise to a concern that you will then have nothing happen to a government that withdraws from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, that violates promises not to become a nuclear power and so on. But that sounds an awful lot, as Gordon was saying, a lot like what already has happened with North Korea. There have been essentially no penalties associated with North Korea. And I think what Kofi Annan is simply saying is, Hey, don't bring us any hard business here. This is a problem we'd just as soon not have to confront.

Host: Alireza Nourizadeh, do we have you back on the phone?

Nourizadeh: Yes, yes. I am back. I can hear you.

Host: Thank you. Well, we were just talking about what happens if the issue of Iran's nuclear program is brought to the U-N. What's your sense -- does Iran expect that were this referred to the United Nations that nothing would happen? Or is there concern in Iran that that would actually lead to some kind of penalties?

Nourizadeh: I think the Iranian policy for the past three years was based upon bribing some forces like China and Russia in order to prevent them from joining the United States and Europeans in combating the Iranian atomic program. And what has happened just the last year, an Iranian delegation signed a big deal with the Chinese in order to provide China with natural gas for the next twenty years. And the Iranians believe that is enough for the Chinese to stay at least neutral when the matter goes to the Security Council. And then, on the other hand, the Iranians are not talking with the same language or the same tone. You see different Iranian delegates, different Iranian representatives talking with the different languages. And that was a very clever game which the Iranians managed to play up until now and buy themselves time. I remember some time ago in your program, I mentioned the statement by Ayatollah [Ali] Khamenei when he received all the Iranian scientists working in Iranian atomic energy organizations and he told them, two bombs will secure the Islamic Republic for the next twenty five years. And after that two billion dollars was released and given to the organization and other atomic research centers in Iran in order to build what Ayatollah Khamenei dreamed would be the guarantor for the continuation of his regime for the next twenty-five years. Therefore, you are dealing with a serious matter. The regime also managed to manipulate the Iranian masses by saying this is a matter of national pride. Why shouldn't we have the atomic technology while Israelis and Pakistanis, they have atomic bombs, they have technology and we should have it. And they never tell the Iranian people their real intention. They don't tell them that we are going to build a bomb. And unfortunately, the Europeans behaved naively towards the Iranian intention. They tried to convince them that it is in their interest to stop the enrichment of uranium while the Iranians are doing something else. And it's just a matter of time and I think, on the contrary of most of the observers, who are talking about within the next five years or ten years the Iranians will be able to build their bomb; I have documents and I have information confirming that we are talking about eighteen months, two years. After that, the Iranians will have their bomb. And you are not dealing with a North Korean-style government because North Korea is a poor country. Iran has got wealth. Now the price of oil has been doubled and they have enough reserve and they have enough resources in order to even sustain sanctions for a long, long period.

Host: Gordon Flake, let me ask you this. Alireza Nourizadeh talks about the quest for a bomb in Iran being built around the survival of the regime, not necessarily the interests of the country, but rather the interests of the regime. Has that been the driving thrust in North Korea and how does that affect a negotiating strategy if what you're looking at is not a country that's negotiating from the security of the country, but rather a country that's negotiating from the point of view of the security of the ruling regime?

Flake: That's precisely the problem. And if you look at it in historical context, the North Korean nuclear program is not something relatively new. A lot of people looking at the current crisis like to attribute it just to a reaction to President Bush's Axis of Evil speech, but this is actually a long-standing program that has to do not only with the survival of the regime but also with their national identity, the desire to be a member of the big boys, a member of the superpowers. And it's kind of their own self-image. And as a result, increasingly the thing that makes me more concerned is that, if you look at the internal propaganda going on in North Korea right now and compare it with their negotiating stance, it's increasingly clear that after having, in February, declared themselves de facto a nuclear power, that internally they are tying the legitimacy of the regime, their national identity, to their status as a nuclear power. Which seems to indicate that any positions they might be taking in the negotiating arena about being willing to denuclearize or roll these things back, is increasingly less and less likely.

Host: Frank Gaffney, this keeps seeming to revolve around the question or a legitimate government and when you have a totalitarian regime of one sort or another, both the concern that comes from a nuclear bomb in the hands of a non-democratic regime, and also then the reasons why a government pursues it in the first place. Do negotiations in the long haul work or is the solution at the end of the day hoping that there will be some change in some way or another in the governments themselves such that they aren't the kind of governments that make us worried about whether they have nuclear weapons?

Gaffney: My biggest concern about this process, and I think that my colleagues have very powerfully underscored my own feeling, which is that negotiations are not going to produce de-nuclearized North Korea or de-nuclearized Iran. What makes matters worse is that the very act of negotiating with these regimes helps legitimate them. And it almost always translates into, if not simply time for the regimes to pursue their policies, sometimes assistance -- financial assistance, technical assistance, oil, food in some cases -- at the very least political affirmation that they are peers in the sense that it is appropriate for democratic, accountable, responsible, Western governments to be negotiating with them. So you put all that together, it seems to me that this is a fool's errand. This is going to result in a greater danger for all of us. And unfortunately it's not just about the legitimacy of the regime or perpetuating the regime, it's about the fact that both of these countries are really malevolent -- externally, I think, malevolent forces, as well as horrible to their own people. Whether it's the prospect that they're coupling these nuclear weapons that they're acquiring with long range missiles with which to threaten others or whether it's simply a matter that they are prepared to sell their nuclear technology to still others who might be willing, either as proxies or on their own, to use them against people like us, makes this a very dangerous situation. One I think we cannot continue to simply string along.

Host: Alirezah Nourizadeh, what's your sense of the relationship between the nature of the regime in Tehran and the nuclear program, and how it plays with whether there are hopes for democratic reform in Iran?

Nourizadeh: Unfortunately, the Europeans [stopped] insisting upon issues like human rights, like involvement of the Iranian regime in terrorist activities. Their only concern is that to get promises from these bad boys in Tehran that they are going to stop enrichment of uranium program. That's what they are concerned about. While the United States always insisted that it is not the question about uranium, atomic programs, but also they expect changes of attitude, changes of behavior, democracy, democratization of the regime that suits them. I think the Europeans are telling the Iranian negotiator and the Iranian regime, If you stop enrichment of uranium, then we're going to close our eyes to your activities internally, externally, killing the dissidents, killing your opponents and supporting the terrorist organizations. Your involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, in Lebanon and other countries, it's going to be forgiven. Don't say anything about your involvement in hostage taking in Lebanon, in killing American Marines in Beirut. And, damn the Iranian people, we're not going to talk about them. We just want you to be good people [and] not to continue your atomic enrichment of uranium. What does it matter to the eyes of an Iranian person, to the eyes of people in Iran is, it's not just the atomic program we are complaining of. This regime has the intention to build an atomic bomb to terrorize its own people as well as terrorizing the whole Middle East and the world. And you should stop them not just getting promises from them. Three years, they are giving you promises, and two years ago they signed the agreement with the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany. What has happened? Six months later, they resume their program, and they continue their harassment of Iranian intellectual dissidents, and their human rights file is worsening and all of that because the Europeans are continuing to talk to them in a very civilized manner to convince. It's not a question of convincing them. They have a program and they are continuing this program, and the only thing for them is just to buy time.

Host: Well, Gordon Flake, is this a lesson they've learned from the North Korean example that once the talk is all about the nuclear program one way or another, that the condition of the people within the country, the human rights violations within the country, those issues all kind of disappear off the table?

Flake: You know we really tested that proposition in 1994. The United States entered into what was called The 1994 Geneva Agreed Framework with North Korea, and it was based on the assumption that North Korea could be bribed or persuaded through inducements to give up its nuclear weapons program -- or to freeze it at least, not actually to give it up at that point. And for really the better part of a decade, that served as the foundation of our policy towards North Korea. As a result, the focus on issues such as human rights, such as the other, broader security interests were all kind of sublimated to that overriding issue. With the beginning of the [George W.] Bush administration, the focus was broadened from the very start to a much more comprehensive approach that looked at conventional weapons, that looked at support of terrorism, that looked at drug smuggling and other illegal activities. And of course, included human rights. It's that insistence on a comprehensive approach that kind of can be, partly at least, to blame for the current problem actually being exposed. Another way to look at it is that the inefficiencies of the previous approach are being exposed. So, right now we're in a situation where we're very much at loggerheads. To use the term negotiations in the Korean context is actually even a misnomer. Our current administration here in the U-S has been very clear that what we're talking about is talks. And it's not an idle distinction to talk about six party talks as opposed to negotiations, because the talks are all about outlining the preconditions that are necessary for North Korea to return to the negotiating table. In other words, North Korea, having had [on] no fewer than five occasions internationally, some of them signed, promised not to develop nuclear weapons. Now having publicly admitted to having done so, [they] really don't have the basic qualifications for diplomacy and credibility. You can't say, we broke five agreements, let's make a new agreement. So, in order to enter into negotiations, the U-S basic position is that there is a precondition, which is at least a commitment to return to compliance with your previous agreements before you can have the basic credibility to return to negotiations. At this point, you see, that itself is a sticking point. Commitment by words alone is something the North Koreans can't swallow, so we really are at loggerheads with North Korea right now.

Host: Frank Gaffney, so what should the U-S do? What should the European Union do at this point? Is there a credible strategy for trying to promote some sort of internal change in either Iran or even in North Korea as a way of dealing with the inability to achieve much in the way of negotiations?

Gaffney: I hope that there is. If there is, it is being a very closely held and well-kept secret. It appears as though there's a sort of desultory effort on the part of the United States to reach out to the people of Iran. The president talks about it from time to time, making clear that we stand with the people of Iran and against their government. And yet, with almost the same breath, we are giving the Europeans encouragement to continue these negotiations which have all the problems that we've just been talking about. Whether anything will change, if and when this is brought to the U-N Security Council is another questions. But on the North Korean thing, and Gordon might have a few better insights on this than I do, I think there's no evidence that we are seriously pursuing the liberation of the people of North Korea and that's a terrible tragedy.

Host: I'm afraid we're out of time. That's going to have to be the last word for today.

I'd like to thank my guests: Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, L. Gordon Flake of The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation and joining us by phone from London, Alireza Nourizadeh of the Center for Arab-Iranian Studies. Before we go, I'd like to invite you to send us your questions or comments. You can reach us through our web site at w-w-w-dot-v-o-a-news-dot-com-slash-ontheline For On the Line, I'm Eric Felten.