Global Security

In the Indianapolis Star, David Ignatius connects recent turnabouts in North Korean behavior to the application of US Treasury Department sanctions on financial institutions that do business with DPRK. While I have no doubt that these sanctions helped coax North Korea back to the international fold, I wonder if a better connection might be drawn between October's Security Council sanctions and the apparent breakthrough in North Korea? According to Ignatius, the Treasury Department action forced a number of Asian banks to freeze North Korean assets. But that was back in September 2005. One year before North Korea tested its weapon. On the other hand, the Security Council unanimously authorized sanctions this past October. Three weeks later, North Korea agreed to resume the six party talks. And now it would seem that as a result of these renewed talks, North Korea is closer than ever to suspending its weapons.

In the first few months of 2005, the Security Council considered granting the International Criminal Court the jurisdiction to investigate alleged war crimes in Darfur. The debate was tough at the time. The United States is not a signatory to the treaty that created court and it was unclear whether or not it would support the referral in the Security Council. The crisis in Darfur, however, seemed to inspire a brief détente between the United States and the ICC. When the resolution came to a vote, the United States abstained and let the measure pass. Nearly 20 months later, we are seeing the first results of that decision. On Tuesday, the ICC's top prosecutor released the names of two individuals against whom his office has built a case. According to the recently released court documents, Ahmad Harun, a Sudanese government official, is alleged to have hired a janjaweed militia commander named Ali Kushyb to clear out villages and towns in West Darfur. Though these are two relatively mid-level players, the investigation in Darfur is still open. The prosecutor has pledged to follow the evidence where it leads. Presumably, this means up the chain of command to more senior officials of the Sudanese government.

Diplomats from the U.S., Britain, China, Russia, Germany and France have agreed to start working on new resolution in order to pressure Iran to rein in its nuclear program.

The State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said the United States was willing to join in talks between the Europeans and Iran over the nuclear program, provided that Iran suspended its uranium enrichment activity.

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In The New York Times op-ed page, Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, writes that the week-old UN sanctions on Iran are beginning to have its intended effect.

"Top leaders of the Islamic Republic, from Ayatollah Khamenei to Mr. Rafsanjani, have made it clear that they consider sanctions a serious threat -- more serious, according to Mr. Rafsanjani, than the possibility of an invasion. "In other words, what the unilateral and increasingly quixotic American embargo could not do in more than a decade, a limited United Nations resolution has accomplished in less than a month. And the resolution succeeded because few things frighten the mullahs more than the prospect of confronting a united front made up of the European Union, Russia, China and the United States. The resolution was a manifestation of just such a united front."

Milani also states that the powerful insiders like Ali Larjani, the top Iranian nuclear negotiator, are in damage-control mode right now. Incidentally, this includes a series of high-level repudiations of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad confrontational rhetoric about the Holocaust. But more to the point, the sanctions seem to have inspired the Iranian regime to contemplate what previously they had not. As Milani writes, the Ayatollah's foreign policy advisor stated forthrightly "that suspending Uranium enrichment is not a red line for the regime." So despite President Ahmadinejad's blustery proclamations to the contrary, the real power players behind Iranian foreign policy are willing to agree to some sort of compromise that includes suspension.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says that he is "deeply concerned" that Iran has not met the Security Council deadline to suspend uranium enrichment.

"I urge again that the Iranian Government fully comply with the Security Council as soon as possible" to engage in continued negotiation "with the international community so that we will be able to address and peacefully resolve this issue," he told reporters in Vienna, Austria, where he is on an official visit.

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Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged Iran's government to full comply with the SG and answer to the international community concerning their pursuit for nuclear technology.

Last December the 15-member Council imposed sanctions on Tehran, maintaining that Iran's nuclear programme was aimed at weapons production, a claim the Government consistently denies. "Again, taking this opportunity, I would strongly urge the Iranian authorities to comply, first of all fully with the Security Council resolution, and continue to negotiate with the international community."

But Iran's leaders say they plan to press ahead:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said today that Iran had a right to pursue nuclear technology and "will continue our work to reach our right in the shortest possible time," according to the ISNA news agency. Speaking in Siahkal in northern Iran, Mr. Ahmadinejad said, "Obtaining this technology is very important for our country's development and honour."

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As mentioned yesterday, Special Envoys of the United Nations and African Union will travel to Sudan next week to meet with Government officials and Darfur rebels. Today, acting United States ambassador to the United Nations Alejandro Wolff helped ramp up the pressure on Sudan by announcing that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will address the Council based on the envoys' recommendations.

Ban Ki-moon finished his trip to Washington yesterday with a capstone speech on UN priorities and US-UN relations delivered to a distinguished audience of government, media, and civil society leaders at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Notably, resolving the crisis in Darfur and building consensus for the deployment of a joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force ranked as his very first priority. Ban then cited several other items of concern and ticked off a laundry list of challenges before the world body. He called Iraq "the whole world's problem" and pledged to continue reconstruction support through the International Compact. And in a statement sure to upset some, Ban stated his intention to make the "Quartet" a more central actor in helping to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. On non-proliferation, Ban gave a nod to the punitive Security Council resolutions against North Korea and Iran and called on member states to boost their overall commitment to non-proliferation and disarmament on a global level.

Three separate events this week provide a good case study of the international community's struggling non-proliferation strategy. In Washington today, President Bush signed into law the United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Act. The bill, passed by Congress before it adjourned for the year, rescinds American prohibitions against civilian nuclear technology exchanges with India. These sanctions had been in place since 1974, when India first detonated a nuclear weapons and officially became an atomic weapons wielding nation.