As Iran expands its nuclear infrastructure and North Korea issues increasingly hostile threats, analysts continue to expend much energy trying to figure out what military capabilities the two mainnuclear outliershave. One is certain: Iran and North Korea have an outsized ability to influence debates about US defense policy. In March, the US decided toexpand its missile defensesin Alaska to counter a potential North Korean ballistic missile attack. The threat from Iran has similarly driven USmissile defense planning,arms salesand other policy decisions. North Korea and Iran have also become highly politicized components of our national security discourse. For instance, Republican Senators Bob Corker and Jim Inhofe recently cited the countries asreasons to opposePresident Obamas desire to reduce US and Russian nuclear stockpiles and instead increase funding for modernizing our nuclear arsenal.Often mentioned in a single breath, the threats from Tehran and Pyongyang are important shapers of national security decisions in Washington. So its worth asking: do Iran and North Korea pose the same type of danger? Is one of more concern than the other? And how should the US deal with these countries, which pose the most acute challenges to the global nonproliferation regime?
Iran and North Korea share some important characteristics: both are ruled by authoritarian regimes, both have issued worrisome threats to neighbors that are US allies and both have remained intransigent despite harsh international condemnation and strict sanctions.
Still, from a purely capabilities-based standpoint, the countries shouldnt technically be grouped in the same category for one very obvious reason: North Korea has a nuclear arsenal and Iran does not.
North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in 2006 and it has enough plutonium for 4-8 nuclear weapons. Iran, for its part, may be interested in something more than peaceful nuclear energy, but it has refrained from enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels and from acquiring enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb. Moreover, while neither nation can hit the US with inter-continental ballistic missiles, North Koreas missiles can reach farther than Irans (in fact, theressome evidencethat Iran has had to pause its ballistic missile program due to difficulties imposed by economic sanctions).
In terms of US policy options, North Koreas nuclear weapons constrain our actions in a way that isnt applicable with Iran. While many have given seriousconsideration to a military strikeon Iran, few consider attacking North Korea a good idea because of its nuclear weapons and the significant conventional military threat it poses to South Korea. Taking out an existing nuclear arsenal is a tall order, and in North Koreas case, a strike would be incredibly difficult since wecouldnt even be sure where our targets were.
In this regard, the North Korean and Iranian cases are similar. Iran doesnt have a nuclear arsenal, but a military strike on the country would be a disaster. Iran would surely retaliate against Israeli and US targets. The confrontation could escalate into a destabilizing regional war in the already volatile Middle East and all this without any guarantee that Iran couldnt simply rebuild its nuclear facilities a few years later. Worst of all, premature military action would breed resentment and insecurity in Iran, which would probably compel its government to embark on a full-scale nuclear weapons program a decision thathas not yet been made.
This brings us to the crucial difference between Iran and North Korea: with Iran, the United States has a unique opportunity to solve the problem before it becomes a greater crisis. Iran still hasnt committed to going nuclear, which offers a chance to prevent it from following North Koreas path. The reason for cautious optimism is that, unlike the North Korean hermit kingdom, Iran is integrated into the global economy and dependent on international trade. So, economic sanctions should give us far more leverage with Iran than they have with North Korea. (Sanctions expert Etel Solingenmakes a distinctionbetween inward facing and outward facing governments, arguing that the latter are more interested in ties with the international community and therefore more likely to be swayed by sanctions. In many ways, Iran is inward-facing, but certainly much less so than North Korea).
Relatedly, although Iran is far from a liberal democracy, its system is more open than North Koreas and its leaders are much more accountable to the public. Iran analyst Alireza Nader recentlysuggestedthat the government in Tehran is more responsive to economic pressure, pointing out that North Korea has suffered from sanctions, but its regime does not care about its population the way the Islamic Republic has to consider its population.
All of this means that the US can still use its considerable diplomatic leverage to avoid being forced to choose between a military conflict and living with an Iran with expanded nuclear capabilities.
To be sure, dissuading Iran from its nuclear ambitions wont be easy. Thus far, negotiations have yielded little except frustration. But this isnt because Iran is a lost cause with which weve run out of options. Rather, talks have largely foundered because both sides have yet to commit to the flexibility and trust-building needed to broker an agreement. With Iran, more so than with North Korea, the foundation is in place to reach a compromise all thats needed is the political will to get there.
North Korea and Iran pose tough foreign policy challenges, and in both cases, the available options are few and far from ideal. But with Iran,continued negotiationsoffer an opportunity to stop a still-nascent nuclear program and prevent a nuclear breakout that would destabilize the region and threaten the credibility of the global nonproliferation regime. As we look for ways to deal with two difficult outlier states, thats one opportunity we shouldnt fail to seize.
By Lobelog
The Iran Project is not responsible for the content of quoted articles.
