Why should Pyongyang trust Trump?
Washington scrapping the nuclear pact with Tehran puts a question-mark on the upcoming North Korea Summit
It can be difficult to admit it, but amid all the bluster, vanity, contradictory statements, scandals and administrative chaos of the Donald Trump administration, the United States President does quite often have a point. Sometimes he even deserves a bit of credit for going about things in his own idiosyncratic way.
This is certainly true on North Korea’s nuclear missile programmes, where his approach of threatening war, making the issue a top priority in relations with China and then being prepared to take great diplomatic risks through offering a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has produced at least the potential for some kind of agreement.
Of course, the forthcoming talks could still be mishandled by Trump. Accustomed to snap decisions, he could make errors when faced with the wily North Korean leader. He might allow a wedge to be driven between the US and South Korea, or the talks to fail but with Pyongyang receiving the credit for being ready to make concessions. He will have to get used to the idea that Kim is almost certainly not going to give up the nuclear warheads he has amassed, but that it could still be worthwhile to strike a bargain. There could be a freeze on North Korean nuclear and missile developments with verifiable limits, deliberate reductions in military exercises and tensions, security guarantees from the US and its allies, and a discernible economic opening up by the North with some assistance from outside.
Such a deal would be a long way from perfect, because Kim would still have nukes. His gross human rights abuses would continue; it would be difficult to police; it could collapse in the future; and the improved commercial links might help the regime survive rather than eventually bring it down. But it would be better and more stable than the current situation of a cornered dictator and rampant nuclear proliferation.
It would be described as Phase One or interim. Most of the world would greet it with relief, and Trump would no doubt think that, if he can preside over a growing economy, control immigration into the US more tightly and survive the Robert Mueller probe looming over him, a deal on Korea would give him a strong platform for re-election.
Why, then, has Trump scrapped the deal with Iran, signed in 2015? It has certain similarities to a possible agreement with North Korea. Those of us involved in parts of the negotiations often thought we were more likely to end up in armed conflict with Iran than to reach a deal with them. Eventually we were able to sign up to Iran dismantling many of its nuclear facilities.
There are three reasons why Trump is so hostile to this. One is that he didn’t do it himself. This was a Barack Obama flagship achievement, denounced by the Republicans in Congress as weak, and Trump has a campaign commitment to ditch it as “the worst deal ever”.
Money or militias
Secondly, he is highly influenced by pressure from Tel Aviv. And third, he — and they — do indeed have a point. While the Iranians appear to be implementing to the letter the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action they solemnly signed, they have, if anything, stepped up their development of ballistic missile technology since then, and have intensified their bid for power across much of the Middle East. Wherever you look across an arc from Lebanon through Syria, Iraq and over to Yemen, Iran’s money or militias are there.
With the US pulling out of the deal it may be hard to reassemble the international sanctions that brought about the earlier negotiations and so there would be no new or improved deal. And Iran would be free, if it chose, to pursue a renewed nuclear programme, having already received the cash owed to it when sanctions were relaxed.
The best answer to the Iranians’ regional troublemaking is not to go back on the one agreement made with them. It is to maintain strong counter-weights to their influence. The US should be planning to maintain its military presence in Syria, not withdraw it as Trump has wanted. America and the West can have a credible and coordinated strategy for containing Iran without risking a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
Kim intends to rule for far longer than any American president. He is less interested in whether Trump keeps his word than in whether the US States does so.
Ending the Iran deal means that what the US signs up to in one year it can abrogate three years later. It may broadcast the message that Washington does not honour its word. And that in turn would not bode well for an agreement with North Korea — and for the peace of the world.