Excellent Op-ed column on North Korea, Iran, and nuclear proliferation
http://nytimes.com/2005/05/11/opinion/11friedman.html
May 11, 2005
Brussels Sprouts
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
In his book "The Ideas That Conquered the World," Michael Mandelbaum tells a story about a young girl who is eating dinner at a friend's house and her friend's mother asks her if she likes brussels sprouts. "Yes, of course," the girl says. "I like brussels sprouts." After dinner, though, the mother notices that the girl hasn't eaten a single sprout. "I thought you liked brussels sprouts," the mother said. "I do," answered the girl, "but not enough to actually eat them."
Mr. Mandelbaum, who teaches foreign policy at Johns Hopkins, related that story to me during a conversation about the two greatest nuclear proliferation threats we face today: North Korea and Iran. Readers of this column know that I rarely write about nuclear proliferation. It is not because I am not interested. I am. It is not because I think it isn't a grave danger. It is. The reason I don't write about it much is because the solution is so ridiculously obvious there isn't much to say. Here's what I mean:
North Korea's nuclear program could be stopped tomorrow by the country that provides roughly half of North Korea's energy and one-third of its food supplies - and that is China.
All China has to say to Kim Jong Il is: "You will shut down your nuclear weapons program and put all your reactors under international inspection, or we will turn off your lights, cut off your heat and put your whole country on a diet. Have we made ourselves clear?" One thing we know about China - it knows how to play hardball when it wants to, and if China played hardball that way with North Korea, the proliferation threat from Pyongyang would be over.
Ditto Europe vis-à-vis Iran. If the European Union said to the Iranians: "You will shut down your nuclear weapons program and put all your reactors and related facilities under international inspection or you will face a total economic boycott from Europe. Which part of this sentence don't you understand?" Trust me, that is the kind of explicit threat that would get Tehran's attention. Short of that, the Iranians will dicker over their nuclear carpets forever.
So why haven't China and the E.U. said these things? "Like that girl with the brussels sprouts," Mr. Mandelbaum said, "the Chinese and the Europeans are all for combating nuclear proliferation - just not enough actually to do something about it."
At the end of the day, the Chinese would rather live with a nuclear North Korea than risk a collapsed nonnuclear North Korea, and the Europeans would rather live with a nuclear Iran - that Europe can make all kinds of money off of - rather than risk losing Iran's business to prevent it from going nuclear. The Chinese and the Europeans "each assume that in the end, the U.S. will deter both the North Koreans and the Iranians anyway, so why worry," Mr. Mandelbaum said.
Are the Europeans and Chinese behaving cynically? Of course, these are the very countries constantly complaining about U.S. "hegemony," and calling for a "multipolar world." Yet the only thing they are really interested in being a pole for is to oppose the U.S. - not to actually do something hard themselves to stabilize the global system.
The prevailing assumption in Washington is that if something really big is going wrong - like North Korea and Iran going nuclear - it must be because America messed up. Yes, the Bush nonproliferation policy has been pretty dysfunctional, but the real problem is that those parties with the leverage to make a diplomatic difference refuse to use it. (We have already largely isolated Iran and North Korea. There is nothing much more America can threaten, short of using force.)
This is not a joke. If North Korea and Iran both go nuclear, that step may trigger a major realignment of geopolitics - the likes of which has not been seen since the end of the cold war. If North Korea sets off a nuclear test, how long will Japan continue relying on the U.S. for its nuclear shield? And what will South Korea and Taiwan do? And if Japan or South Korea goes nuclear, how may an anxious China react? And if Shiite Iran becomes a nuclear power - in tandem with Iraq's being run by Shiites - the Sunni Arab world will go nuts, not to mention the Israelis. Will Saudi Arabia then feel compelled to acquire a nuclear deterrent? Will Egypt?
We're talking nuclear dominoes.
So there you have it - my annual nonproliferation column. Unless China and Europe get serious about the problem, it's not going to get fixed. And for now, neither one seems to be ready or willing to eat its brussels sprouts.
Rodong Sinmun Slams Bush Group's Pressure upon DPRK
Pyongyang, May 10 (KCNA) -- The DPRK will not deal with such hooligans as the Bush group who have become evermore frantic in their offensive to pressurize it, says Rodong Sinmun Tuesday in a signed commentary. It goes on:
Bush and his clan are blustering that they would "refer the nuclear issue of north Korea to the UN Security Council." This clearly indicates their intention to brand the DPRK as a "nuclear criminal" at any cost and woo the United Nations to apply collective sanctions against the DPRK and stifle it in the end.
This goes to prove that the Bush group is one of hooligans bereft of any normal thinking power and they are not guys whom we can ever deal with.
The U.S. is entirely to blame for the deadlocked six-party talks and the delayed settlement of the nuclear issue. The Bush group has tightened the network of blockade against the DPRK by massively deploying armed forces in and around south Korea for a preemptive attack on it. And they adopted even the "North Korean Human Rights Act" in a bid to justify the anti-DPRK human rights offensive and the policy for bringing down the system in the DPRK.
The DPRK repeatedly demanded the U.S. rebuild itself the groundwork for the six-party talks destroyed by it.
Nevertheless, the U.S. branded the DPRK, its dialogue partner, as part of "an axis of evil" and then an "outpost of tyranny" far from making a switchover in its hostile policy toward the DPRK. The DPRK can not return to the talks as long as it is branded as such. The U.S. has gone the lengths of instigating the UN to put sanctions upon the DPRK.
The DPRK sees through the immature and bellicose nature of the cowboy-style foreign policy pursued by Bush, once known as a cowboy. The DPRK was wise and far-sighted when it stated that it would not expect any solution to the nuclear issue or any progress in the DPRK-U.S. relations during his term.
The army and the people of the DPRK will remain undeterred and strong-willed in face of any move of the U.S. to refer the nuclear issue to the UN. Their clear message is that the U.S. may do as it pleases. A caravan is bound to go ahead though dogs bark. The DPRK will invariably advance along the way chosen by itself despite any smear campaign or any pressure.
The U.S. warlike forces are sadly mistaken if they calculate they can get rid of the awkward position in which they have found themselves since the DPRK's declaration of access to nuclear weapons and isolate and stifle it through international pressure and blockade. The reality proves that it is the only way of settling the issue to steadily advance along the path chosen by the DPRK itself. The U.S. should bear this in mind and drop its rude behavior.
http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm
May 11, 2005
Brussels Sprouts
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
In his book "The Ideas That Conquered the World," Michael Mandelbaum tells a story about a young girl who is eating dinner at a friend's house and her friend's mother asks her if she likes brussels sprouts. "Yes, of course," the girl says. "I like brussels sprouts." After dinner, though, the mother notices that the girl hasn't eaten a single sprout. "I thought you liked brussels sprouts," the mother said. "I do," answered the girl, "but not enough to actually eat them."
Mr. Mandelbaum, who teaches foreign policy at Johns Hopkins, related that story to me during a conversation about the two greatest nuclear proliferation threats we face today: North Korea and Iran. Readers of this column know that I rarely write about nuclear proliferation. It is not because I am not interested. I am. It is not because I think it isn't a grave danger. It is. The reason I don't write about it much is because the solution is so ridiculously obvious there isn't much to say. Here's what I mean:
North Korea's nuclear program could be stopped tomorrow by the country that provides roughly half of North Korea's energy and one-third of its food supplies - and that is China.
All China has to say to Kim Jong Il is: "You will shut down your nuclear weapons program and put all your reactors under international inspection, or we will turn off your lights, cut off your heat and put your whole country on a diet. Have we made ourselves clear?" One thing we know about China - it knows how to play hardball when it wants to, and if China played hardball that way with North Korea, the proliferation threat from Pyongyang would be over.
Ditto Europe vis-à-vis Iran. If the European Union said to the Iranians: "You will shut down your nuclear weapons program and put all your reactors and related facilities under international inspection or you will face a total economic boycott from Europe. Which part of this sentence don't you understand?" Trust me, that is the kind of explicit threat that would get Tehran's attention. Short of that, the Iranians will dicker over their nuclear carpets forever.
So why haven't China and the E.U. said these things? "Like that girl with the brussels sprouts," Mr. Mandelbaum said, "the Chinese and the Europeans are all for combating nuclear proliferation - just not enough actually to do something about it."
At the end of the day, the Chinese would rather live with a nuclear North Korea than risk a collapsed nonnuclear North Korea, and the Europeans would rather live with a nuclear Iran - that Europe can make all kinds of money off of - rather than risk losing Iran's business to prevent it from going nuclear. The Chinese and the Europeans "each assume that in the end, the U.S. will deter both the North Koreans and the Iranians anyway, so why worry," Mr. Mandelbaum said.
Are the Europeans and Chinese behaving cynically? Of course, these are the very countries constantly complaining about U.S. "hegemony," and calling for a "multipolar world." Yet the only thing they are really interested in being a pole for is to oppose the U.S. - not to actually do something hard themselves to stabilize the global system.
The prevailing assumption in Washington is that if something really big is going wrong - like North Korea and Iran going nuclear - it must be because America messed up. Yes, the Bush nonproliferation policy has been pretty dysfunctional, but the real problem is that those parties with the leverage to make a diplomatic difference refuse to use it. (We have already largely isolated Iran and North Korea. There is nothing much more America can threaten, short of using force.)
This is not a joke. If North Korea and Iran both go nuclear, that step may trigger a major realignment of geopolitics - the likes of which has not been seen since the end of the cold war. If North Korea sets off a nuclear test, how long will Japan continue relying on the U.S. for its nuclear shield? And what will South Korea and Taiwan do? And if Japan or South Korea goes nuclear, how may an anxious China react? And if Shiite Iran becomes a nuclear power - in tandem with Iraq's being run by Shiites - the Sunni Arab world will go nuts, not to mention the Israelis. Will Saudi Arabia then feel compelled to acquire a nuclear deterrent? Will Egypt?
We're talking nuclear dominoes.
So there you have it - my annual nonproliferation column. Unless China and Europe get serious about the problem, it's not going to get fixed. And for now, neither one seems to be ready or willing to eat its brussels sprouts.
Rodong Sinmun Slams Bush Group's Pressure upon DPRK
Pyongyang, May 10 (KCNA) -- The DPRK will not deal with such hooligans as the Bush group who have become evermore frantic in their offensive to pressurize it, says Rodong Sinmun Tuesday in a signed commentary. It goes on:
Bush and his clan are blustering that they would "refer the nuclear issue of north Korea to the UN Security Council." This clearly indicates their intention to brand the DPRK as a "nuclear criminal" at any cost and woo the United Nations to apply collective sanctions against the DPRK and stifle it in the end.
This goes to prove that the Bush group is one of hooligans bereft of any normal thinking power and they are not guys whom we can ever deal with.
The U.S. is entirely to blame for the deadlocked six-party talks and the delayed settlement of the nuclear issue. The Bush group has tightened the network of blockade against the DPRK by massively deploying armed forces in and around south Korea for a preemptive attack on it. And they adopted even the "North Korean Human Rights Act" in a bid to justify the anti-DPRK human rights offensive and the policy for bringing down the system in the DPRK.
The DPRK repeatedly demanded the U.S. rebuild itself the groundwork for the six-party talks destroyed by it.
Nevertheless, the U.S. branded the DPRK, its dialogue partner, as part of "an axis of evil" and then an "outpost of tyranny" far from making a switchover in its hostile policy toward the DPRK. The DPRK can not return to the talks as long as it is branded as such. The U.S. has gone the lengths of instigating the UN to put sanctions upon the DPRK.
The DPRK sees through the immature and bellicose nature of the cowboy-style foreign policy pursued by Bush, once known as a cowboy. The DPRK was wise and far-sighted when it stated that it would not expect any solution to the nuclear issue or any progress in the DPRK-U.S. relations during his term.
The army and the people of the DPRK will remain undeterred and strong-willed in face of any move of the U.S. to refer the nuclear issue to the UN. Their clear message is that the U.S. may do as it pleases. A caravan is bound to go ahead though dogs bark. The DPRK will invariably advance along the way chosen by itself despite any smear campaign or any pressure.
The U.S. warlike forces are sadly mistaken if they calculate they can get rid of the awkward position in which they have found themselves since the DPRK's declaration of access to nuclear weapons and isolate and stifle it through international pressure and blockade. The reality proves that it is the only way of settling the issue to steadily advance along the path chosen by the DPRK itself. The U.S. should bear this in mind and drop its rude behavior.
http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm