The latest round of negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 held in the Kazakh capital of Almaty on April 5-6 is said to have been the frankest and most detailed so far. For the very first time, the talks included a direct US-Iranian exchange of some 30 to 40 minutes — between Wendy Sherman, US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, and Dr Saeed Jalili, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator and Secretary of its Supreme National Security Council. Sherman is reported to have asked Jalili a series of specific questions to which he is said to have responded in considerable detail.

Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s Foreign Policy Chief, who chaired the P5+1 group of delegates — from Britain, China, France, Russia, the US plus Germany — admitted the two sides remained far apart “on the substance” of the negotiations, but she was by no means gloomy or dismissive. The participants, she said, would now “go back to [their] capitals to evaluate where we stand in the process.” She would be in touch with Jalili — in a matter of “days, not months — to see if the gap could be narrowed and how to go forward”.

For its part, Iran was said to be eager to schedule a new meeting, but, given the considerable differences between the two sides, the P5+1 said they wanted to avoid “talks for talks’ sake”.

If one were to listen to Catherine Ashton, the outlook for a deal with Iran would seem reasonably hopeful. But is this a true picture? It is by no means clear whether Washington truly wants a deal with Iran or whether its covert aim is to bring down the Islamic Republic. Certainly, this is Iran’s profound suspicion, which is not surprising. Just as many people in the US suspect that Iran is spinning out the talks to gain time for its covert nuclear programme, so a great many Iranians believe the US is not negotiating in good faith. They suspect the US is using the pretext of Iran’s nuclear programme to impose ever more crippling sanctions on it with the aim of bringing down the Islamic regime.

Ashton is patently well-intentioned. She seems to have managed to dispel some of Iran’s darkest suspicions. Breaking with the US tendency to portray Iran as a sinister adversary, she has made a real effort to befriend Jalili, to understand his concerns and break with the language of condemnation and threat too often adopted by US officials and commentators. It is by no means clear, however, whether the US shares her positive approach.

For one thing, Israel, which exerts considerable influence over America’s Middle East policy, wants to close down Iran’s nuclear industry altogether and makes no secret of its readiness to use force to achieve this aim. It is totally opposed to any compromise which will allow Iran to continue to enrich uranium. Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs, has been quick to dismiss the talks as a failure. Steinitz — and, behind him, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — have pressed the US to set a red line for Iran, insisting that it totally abandon its civilian nuclear programme.

US President Barack Obama has adopted a cooler tone, arguing that it will take at least a year, if not longer, for Iran to build a nuclear weapon. However, it is by no means clear how far he can depart from Israel’s more pressing agenda. In the circumstances, the negotiations behind the scenes between the US and Israel may well be as important as those between Iran and the P5+1 — if not more so.

Iran has always insisted on international recognition of its “right” to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes on its home soil. From the start, this has been its position of principle. “What we are insisting on is our right to enrich,” Jalili told the press. “This is equally true for 5 per cent or 20 per cent. You know well that 20 per cent enriched uranium is used for medical purposes. One million Iranian patients are using those isotopes ... Today, the fuel is exclusively used for humanitarian matters, medical purposes, exclusively peaceful purposes.” Jalili explained that Iran’s proposals required recognising “our right to enrich and ending behaviours which have every indication of enmity towards the Iranian people ... In consideration of our new proposals, it is now up to the P5+1 to demonstrate its willingness and sincerity to take appropriate confidence-building steps in the future”.

Nevertheless, at Almaty, the Iranian delegation showed some flexibility in suggesting that, as a “confidence-building” measure, Iran may be prepared to freeze production of some of its enriched uranium if, in return, the West were to lift its economic sanctions. Iran, however, seems unlikely to agree to close its enrichment plant at Fordo, buried deep in a mountain, unless its legal right to nuclear power under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is acknowledged.
Does this indicate that Iran and the P5+1 are at a dangerous stalemate? It is to be hoped that the departure from office next June of Iran’s pugnacious President Ahmadinejad will ease the way to an international agreement, which will spare the region the horrors of war.

The writer is a commentator and author of several books on Middle East affairs. This article has been reproduced from the Gulf News.

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-ne...inions/columns

The present confrontation between the USA and North Korea is not expected to lead to an actual nuclear exchange, but does represent the first time since the Cold War that any country has threatened the US with nuclear attack.

There is poignancy in the fact that it is the USA under threat, for it is still the only country to have launched a nuclear attack on another, and that too on a country which at the time was in occupation of Korea. However, there is scepticism as well, for North Korea’s obtaining nuclear weapons was not through the more usual route of being part of the ‘nuclear club’, whose members are the permanent members of the UN Security Council, and the victors of World War II. It is Japan, which occupied Korea even before World War II.

With North Korea mentioned by US President George Bush as one of the ‘Axis of Evil’ back in 2006, it almost seems as if it was the only member with a nuclear programme. It turns out that Iraq did not have any nuclear weapons, and the IAEA says Iran does not either. However, North Korea does.

North Korea is something of a maverick. It was created because of World War II, it and South Korea being the result of a Japanese occupation followed by an attempted Communist takeover. Kim Il-sung was its first President, and made his repute in the 1950-53 Korean War, in which the USA played a leading role in fighting Chinese troops, who fought for North Korea. Kim had commanded a regiment of Korean exiles in the Soviet Army, and during his stay there, had children. One of them, Kim Jong-Il, succeeded him when he died in 1994. Kim Jong-Il himself died in December 2012, leaving his own son Kim Jong-un as his heir. This is the only example in the Communist world of what amounts to a dynastic succession. There has not even been one other example of a Communist leader being succeeded by a child even after an appropriate interval, let alone the North Korean example, where Kim Jong-Il, himself having succeeded his father, was succeeded by his own son, even though he was just a teenager.

One of the noticeable features of the North Korean regime has been the cult of personality. That has led to, among other things, the declaration of Kim Il-sung as President and General Secretary of the Korean Workers’ Party in perpetuity, not to mention the embalming of his body Lenin-style, for public viewing.

Similarly, Kim Jong-Il was declared eternal Chairman the Military Commission after his death. Then there are the titles. Kim Il-sung himself was the ‘Great Leader’. Kim Jong-Il was the ‘Dear Leader’. Kim Jong-un is the ‘Brilliant Comrade’, though he has also been called the ‘Great Successor’. It is worth noting first that the prospect of a North Korean nuclear attack has been raised, for while the nuclear programme itself was started by Kim Il-Sung, the nuclear test was conducted in 2006, under Kim Jong-Il.

It cannot be ignored that North Korea has always been closely aligned to China. In fact, Kim Il-sung joined the Communist Party of China in 1931, though the Communist Party of Korea had been founded. China, only newly Communist, joined North Korea in its war against the USA in 1950-53, to the extent that it is seen as a Sino-US conflict more than anything else. North Korea joined China when it split the Communist camp
Interestingly, China too has seen a leadership transition, with Xi Jinping taking office as President on March 14. He not only represents the ‘fifth generation’ since the revolution, but is also the first son of a leading Communist official to become General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.

However, his father, Xi Zhong Aun, while a senior party member at the time of the 1949 Revolution, died in 2002. He did not pass on even his position, which was pivotal but not leading, the way that Kim Il-sung or Kim Jong-Il did.
However, he was the first example of the hereditary principle in China since the revolution.

At the same time, the neighbours of North Korea seem to have been affected by this same hereditary principle. The Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, who took office (for the second time) on December 26, is a third-generation politician on his father’s side, with both his father and grandfather having been members of the House of Representatives before him, while his maternal grandfather had been Prime Minister.

The President of South Korea, Park Geun-Hye, who took office on December 12, is not just the country’s first woman President, but is also the daughter of President Park Chung-hee, who had been President 1961-79, until his own assassination. He too had been a Korean War veteran, but obviously on the South Korean, pro-American side.

In that respect, US President Barack Obama is very much an outsider, his father not being a politician. However, it might be noted that the leads mentioned of China, Japan and South Korea, have all reached the top largely through their own ability. Though there is no denying that their famous progenitors’ names opened the right doors at the right times. It must be conceded, however, that none have been given the leadership of their country the way Kim Jong-un has.

One of the important features of the current crisis is thus about the extent to which it will allow the bolstering of the image of so many leaders. It should be remembered that these leaders (except Abe) may be new to their current jobs, but have been in government for long periods. It should also be kept in mind that the area, the Pacific Rim, is very important to the sole superpower.

Pakistan is not central to this crisis, but is dependent on South Korea, and liable to blame because of North Korea, whose nuclear programme it is assumed to be involved in because of Dr Abdul Qadir Khan. It should be remembered that North Korea is not merely trying to overawe a non-nuclear South Korea, but to take on the USA, which is multiple-ly more powerful. It seems as if the US nuclear umbrella, which it had extended to South Korea, where it has several divisions stationed to guarantee security and which serve as a nuclear tripwire, has failed.

A nuclear war, even if limited, will be disastrous to the global environment. Pakistan would be unable to escape its effects. This does not begin to include the economic effects that would be disastrous. Amid this general economic collapse, Pakistan would be unlikely to stand much chance
By bringing the world this close to nuclear war, an important function of the USA as the sole superpower has been highlighted. It has been shown that it must act to prevent environmental disasters. Its limitations have been exposed. In a multipolar world, this responsibility would be divided. It is, perhaps, more important for those enamoured of the USA in Pakistan to learn that its power has limits, and does not involve just endlessly strutting around, throwing its weight about, as it seems to believe.

Whatever the outcome of this crisis, it must b be seen as the beginning of the confrontation between the USA and China. Only on one side is a surrogate. However, one factor for stability is the fact that the Chinese economy cannot afford an attack on the USA. That alone might keep the peace. But where does that leave the USA? In a world where it depends on China to save it from attack? And where does that leave Pakistan?

The writer is a veteran journalist and founding member as well as executive editor of TheNation. Email: maniazi@nation.com.pk

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-ne...inions/columns

Weapons of mass destruction are back in the news, raising fresh fears of proliferation and use. On April 2 North Korea announced its nuclear reactor would restart. Two weeks earlier the Syrian government and rebel forces accused each other of discharging a deadly chemical near the city of Aleppo, although what exactly happened remains murky. The threat from nuclear, chemical and biological weapons hangs over the planet.

Six conventions, two treaties, one protocol, one regime, one arrangement, one code, one initiative and ten regional or zone treaties have been instituted since 1925 to control these instruments of mass murder. Most of the accords require only passive agreement and are trumped by influence-peddling, profit-seeking and ideology-spreading considerations. As a result the danger of nuclear, chemical and biological agents passing to non-state actors is on the rise, too.

Countries have spurred proliferation of every WMD category since the 1950s. Figure 1 shows major patterns of WMD proliferation. Disseminating the weapons, relevant technologies and dual-use materials remains a surefire way for not only rogue states and terrorist organizations but even superpowers to sway other nations, make quick profits or destabilize foes. Not surprisingly, the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research concluded: “The non-proliferation treaties lack effective mechanisms to enforce compliance. The less formal export control regimes suffer from the same lack and have limited membership.”

Mustard gas was used extensively during World War I. Negative public reaction led to the Geneva Protocol of 1925. Yet Italy in 1936, Japan from 1937 to 1945, Egypt from 1963 to 1967 and Iraq in the 1980s all deployed chemicals against military and civilian targets. Owing to the transfer of materials and technologies, 23 countries stockpile or have chemical WMD capability: China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Kazakhstan, Libya, Myanmar, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea, Sudan, Syria, Taiwan, United States and Vietnam.

Shadow of mass murder: Syrian doctors attend to alleged victims of a chemical attack (top); North Koreans threaten to restart the Yongbyong nuclear reactor, which had earlier been mothballed

Syria, for example, began receiving material and technological assistance from Egypt in the early 1970s and from Iraq in the 1980s to establish its facilities and arm SCUD missiles with chemical warheads. Pakistan served as another source of dual-use technologies and raw materials for the Assad regime. Iran too added to Damascus’ stockpiles.

Nuclear WMD began as an offensive tool dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The horrific results meant that no rational, civilized state could use them again. Those weapons shifted toward defensive deterrent and emblems of power. So, other nations followed the path laid out by the US. The Soviet Union proliferated technology and hardware widely. China supplied Pakistan with highly enriched uranium [9] for a bomb in 1982. Presently nine countries possess nuclear warheads: Britain, China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and the US.

The number of nations tempted by nuclear WMD is growing. Iran’s nuclear program, having drawn upon Chinese, North Korean and Pakistani expertise, has fissile material for at least five warheads. China has benefited by receiving several billion dollars in revenue, securing access to crude oil, and strengthening its foreign footprint. Iran could even buy a nuclear weapon off the shelf from China or North Korea – the next stage in proliferation. So a broader nuclear acquisitions cascade is building as Sunni Arab nations like Saudi Arabia seek to neutralize both their Shiite neighbour’s might and Israel’s WMD programme.

Biological WMD are popularly considered the most taboo of offensive capabilities. Nonetheless the Imperial Japanese Army from 1939 to 1940 and the Rhodesian Army in the 1970s deployed typhoid, bubonic plague, anthrax, botulism and cholera against Chinese and Africans, respectively. Several nations did relinquish biological WMD capability after acceding to international accords: the US in 1972, Britain, France, Germany and Canada by the late 1980s, the former Soviet Union/Russia in 1992. China signed the BTWC in 1984; however, the US suspects Beijing maintains capability plus provides assistance to Pyongyang and Tehran.

In the Middle East, Egypt weaponised anthrax, botulism and plague in the 1970s with Soviet aid. Israel followed suit with poorly-documented offensive and defensive capabilities. Iran commenced its biological WMD program at Damghan, after experiencing Iraqi chemical WMD, with technical assistance from Russian scientists. Iraq appears to have possessed biological weapons capability under Saddam Hussein, but there is no evidence of the program’s continuation. Likewise Syria is suspected of exploring biological weapons development. Again Russia, China and North Korea appear to be abettors.

WMD proliferation usually focuses on technology and materials like precursor chemicals, biological agents, toxins and uranium. Yet delivery devices, projectile weapons, launch platforms and guidance systems are essential components. The Israelis sell those technically non-WMD items to the Chinese who resell to the North Koreans who then resell to Iran, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Yemen, the UAE and Pakistan. As countries like North Korea and Iran collaborate on missile development, the WMD one develops could fit the other’s delivery system.

Many deals are conducted covertly with countries like Malaysia and Dubai serving as third-party transfer venues. Equally unsettling for global security, WMD trades for profit and ideology have taken place though private outlets such as Pakistan’s former atomic chief A. Q. Khan. Materials siphoned from Russia and the Ukraine also continue fuelling the nuclear black market.

Indeed the danger of nuclear, chemical and biological agents passing to non-state actors is on the rise. Since 2001 Al-Qaeda and its affiliates have sought WMD capability. During Syria’s civil war some sarin, mustard gas and cyanide from government depots reportedly have fallen into illicit hands. The possibility of Islamists wresting materials from Pakistan’s WMD facilities increases as that nation’s political instability grows. Iran for its part appears to have transferred some technologies to regional militant organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

Sensing the growing dangers from both state and non-state agents, nations are adding themselves to the lists of signatories to nuclear, chemical and biological accords. However, many countries have signed only some accords, as shown in the map. Egypt, for instance, which once explored nuclear power and may recommence its quest as Iran did after its revolution, has not ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material or the Nuclear Terrorism Convention.

Only when proliferators see it in their own best interests of preservation and growth to stanch the flow of those weapons and technologies between countries, to exclude non-state entities as recipients and to dismantle weapon programs and stockpiles will the world become safer. Until then, generating consensus for strict implementation of existing accords and taking firm action such as economic and diplomatic sanctions against violators remains necessary. Such action can sway states away from WMD – as it did with Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya.

Increasingly the US has been at the forefront of non-proliferation efforts through multilateral negotiations with Iran and North Korea and with the Proliferation Security Initiative. Yet those attempts are seen by others as attempts to impose agendas rather than safeguard the world. Therefore the United Nations, in addition to individual nations, must function much more vigorously as the centre of initiatives to curb WMD proliferation. Global consensus through the UN would demonstrate shared resolve. Then accords, implementations and dissuasive actions can have maximum impact.

Carol E B Choksy is adjunct lecturer in Strategic Intelligence and Information Management at Indiana University. She is also the CEO of IRAD Strategic Consulting, Inc. Jamsheed K Choksy is professor of Central Eurasian, Iranian, Indian and International studies at Indiana University. He is also a member of the National Council on the Humanities at the US National Endowment for the Humanities.

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/columns/

Although North Korea and Iran are thousands of kilometers apart on opposite sides of Eurasia, they are linked — directly as well as indirectly — in the North Korean crisis.

Iran’s nuclear and long-range ballistic missile ambitions are silent actors in the confrontation between North Korea and a wide range of countries in the international community, including the United States, China and Russia.

All these countries, and many others including Japan, have condemned Pyongyang’s threats to launch nuclear and missile attacks on the US and American bases in Japan and the Western Pacific.

US Secretary of State John Kerry warned at his first press conference last month, following his appointment, that a failure to respond effectively to North Korea’s nuclear sabre rattling risked emboldening Iran. Kerry, who will hold high-level talks in South Korea, Japan and China this week on his first trip to Asia as America’s top diplomat, said after North Korea’s third underground nuclear weapons test on Feb. 12: “This is about proliferation and this is also about Iran, because they are linked.”

Raymond Tanter, a former US National Security Council member, put it more explicitly. “If you want to prevent Iran from getting the bomb, you have to take a hard line against North Korea. If you allow North Korea to get away with miniaturizing (a nuclear warhead), with three nuclear tests, with any number of missile tests, that signals to Iran that a nuclear-armed North Korea can get away with murder and therefore Iran will not be deterred from getting the bomb.”

North Korea and Iran could be the forerunners of a much wider spread of nuclear arms in Asia and the Middle East, as other countries in these regions try to protect themselves by also acquiring nuclear and missile capabilities. Unlike North Korea, Iran denies it is seeking nuclear warheads small enough to fit on intercontinental ballistic missiles able to strike the US mainland. Iran remains a member of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty while North Korea renounced it seven years ago.

However, Iran has rejected international demands to curb uranium enrichment and halt development of plutonium production facilities, both of which can make fissile material for nuclear weapons.

In fact, there are a growing number of reports and disturbing pieces of circumstantial evidence that North Korea and Iran are sharing their nuclear and missile advances through an increasingly close cooperation pact.

John Park, a nuclear arms trade specialist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says that this exchange of technology and know-how between Pyongyang and Tehran has been a “critical — yet under-examined — enabler” of North Korea’s long-range missile development, culminating in its successful launch in December of a three-stage Taepo Dong 2 rocket that placed a small satellite in orbit before the final stage plunged into the Philippine Sea.

Park says that what started as a transactional relationship, where oil-rich Iran provided much-needed cash to North Korea in return for missile parts and technology, has evolved into an effective partnership that includes sharing technical data and procuring specialised components from abroad in defiance of United Nations and Western sanctions. “The time has come to view their previously independent ballistic missile programs as two sides of the same coin,” he adds.

The nuclear and missile partnership was sealed in September when the official North Korean news agency reported that top-level delegations from both countries took part in the signing in Tehran of a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in science, technology and education.

In February British and Israeli newspapers reported that an Iranian physicist, Mohsen Fakrizadeh, was in North Korea when its third nuclear explosive test took place. Fakrizadeh, one of the architects of Iran’s clandestine nuclear program, is involved in designing warheads that could be carried by Iranian missiles.

Also in February, other Western analysts reported that North Korea had recently improved its ballistic missile launch facility at Musudan-ri, on the northeast coast, and that several of the new features were identical to those first seen at Iran’s Semnan launch complex.

A report to US lawmakers in December by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said that North Korea and Iran have combined to advance their nuclear and missile capabilities because neither is any longer receiving as much help from China or Russia as they would like. Both also find it more difficult to obtain certain critical components and materials because of sanctions related to their nuclear and missile programs.

To achieve effective nuclear weapon strike power, North Korea and Iran are working together to obtain sufficient stocks of fissile material, extend the range and accuracy of their ballistic missiles, and design reliable nuclear warheads small enough to fit on the missiles.

Iran already has the largest arsenal of ballistic missiles in the Middle East, many of which are copies of North Korean missiles. The US Defense Department told Congress in its 2012 annual report on Iranian military power that “with sufficient foreign assistance,” Iran might be technically capable of flight-testing an intercontinental ballistic missile by 2015. An ICBM is generally defined as having a range of more than 5,500 kilometers.

North Korea now appears to be irreversibly committed to a future with nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems to offset deficiencies in its large, but out-of-date, conventional military forces. Like Iran, North Korea evidently sees atomic arms as a means of regime preservation, national prestige, coercive diplomacy, and a way to be taken seriously on the international stage.

By banding together, North Korea and Iran may be able to better circumvent sanctions and isolation. The big worry is that with struggling economies, both North Korea and Iran will intensify illicit revenue earning activities by exporting nuclear weapons technology as well as ballistic missiles and components.
North Korea has a history of selling missiles and associated materials to a number of countries, including Iran, Syria and Libya. It assisted Syria in constructing a plutonium nuclear reactor before the partly completed plant was destroyed by an Israeli bombing raid in 2007.

Unless ways can be found to prevent North Korea and Iran from joint proliferation, the outlook for international controls to limit the spread of nuclear arms and ballistic missiles will be bleak.

Japan Times

Weapons of mass destruction are back in the news, raising fresh fears of proliferation and use. On April 2 North Korea announced its nuclear reactor would restart. Two weeks earlier the Syrian government and rebel forces accused each other of discharging a deadly chemical near the city of Aleppo, although what exactly happened remains murky. The threat from nuclear, chemical and biological weapons hangs over the planet.

Six conventions, two treaties, one protocol, one regime, one arrangement, one code, one initiative and 10 regional or zone treaties have been instituted since 1925 to control these instruments of mass murder. Most of the accords require only passive agreement and are trumped by influence-peddling, profit-seeking and ideology-spreading considerations. As a result the danger of nuclear, chemical and biological agents passing to non-state actors is on the rise, too.

Countries have spurred proliferation of every WMD category since the 1950s.
Disseminating the weapons, relevant technologies and dual-use materials remains a surefire way for not only rogue states and terrorist organisations but even superpowers to sway other nations, make quick profits or destabilise foes. Not surprisingly, the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research concluded: “The non-proliferation treaties lack effective mechanisms to enforce compliance. The less formal export control regimes suffer from the same lack and have limited membership.”

Mustard gas was used extensively during World War I. Negative public reaction led to the Geneva Protocol of 1925. Yet Italy in 1936, Japan from 1937 to 1945, Egypt from 1963 to 1967 and Iraq in the 1980s all deployed chemicals against military and civilian targets. Owing to the transfer of materials and technologies, 23 countries stockpile or have chemical WMD capability: China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Kazakhstan, Libya, Myanmar, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea, Sudan, Syria, Taiwan, United States and Vietnam. Syria, for example, began receiving material and technological assistance from Egypt in the early 1970s and from Iraq in the 1980s to establish its facilities and arm SCUD missiles with chemical warheads. Pakistan served as another source of dual-use technologies and raw materials for the Assad regime. Iran too added to Damascus’ stockpiles.

Nuclear WMD began as an offensive tool dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The horrific results meant that no rational, civilised state could use them again. Those weapons shifted toward defensive deterrent and emblems of power. So, other nations followed the path laid out by the US. The Soviet Union proliferated technology and hardware widely. China supplied Pakistan with highly enriched uranium for a bomb in 1982. Presently nine countries possess nuclear warheads: Britain, China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and the US.

The number of nations tempted by nuclear WMD is growing. Iran’s nuclear programme, having drawn upon Chinese, North Korean and Pakistani expertise, has fissile material for at least five warheads. China has benefited by receiving several billion dollars in revenue, securing access to crude oil, and strengthening its foreign footprint. Iran could even buy a nuclear weapon off the shelf from China or North Korea – the next stage in proliferation.
WMD proliferation usually focuses on technology and materials like precursor chemicals, biological agents, toxins and uranium. Yet delivery devices, projectile weapons, launch platforms and guidance systems are essential components. The Israelis sell those technically non-WMD items to the Chinese who resell to the North Koreans who then resell to Iran, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Pakistan. As countries like North Korea and Iran collaborate on missile development, the WMD one develops could fit the other’s delivery systems. The danger of nuclear, chemical and biological agents passing to non-state actors is on the rise. Since 2001 Al Qaeda and its affiliates have sought WMD capability. During Syria’s civil war some sarin, mustard gas and cyanide from government depots reportedly have fallen into illicit hands. The possibility of Islamists wresting materials from Pakistan’s WMD facilities increases as that nation’s political instability grows. Iran for its part appears to have transferred some technologies to regional militant organisations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

Increasingly the US has been at the forefront of non-proliferation efforts through multilateral negotiations with Iran and North Korea and with the Proliferation Security Initiative. Yet those attempts are seen by others as attempts to impose agendas rather than safeguard the world. Therefore the United Nations, in addition to individual nations, must function much more vigorously as the center of initiatives to curb WMD proliferation. Global consensus through the UN would demonstrate shared resolve. Then accords, implementations and dissuasive actions can have maximum impact.

Khaleej Times

April 15, 2013
Jonathan Power


American presidential candidate Jimmy Carter described arms sales as a “cancer”. But once in office he achieved little in controlling them.

In President Bill Clinton’s first term Amnesty International questioned the US government about the use of American military helicopters and armoured vehicles involved in human rights abuses in Turkey. Under pressure from Congress, the State Department compiled a report on human rights violations by the Turkish armed forces. It concluded there was “highly credible” evidence that US-supplied arms and jet fighters had been used to subdue Kurdish villages.

Later, in 1996, the US temporarily suspended the sale of advanced attack helicopters. But two years later there were fresh reports that hundreds more armoured vehicles had been sold. The US Defence Secretary visited Turkey and, reportedly, lobbied on behalf of the American companies wishing to co-produce advanced helicopters there. In that same year, an American company sold 10,000 electric shock weapons to the Turkish police.

In Angola, the US supplied arms for many years to UNITA, the guerrilla movement hostile to the pro-Soviet central government, that helped stoke a war that became so out of control that the country was without any central services to speak of and became the country in Africa, despite its incredible mineral wealth, that was the most ill-fed and disease prone of all.

In Nicaragua, arms supplied by the administration of Ronald Reagan in secret defiance of congressional writ kept alive a civil war that could have been ended much earlier than it eventually was, by compromise and elections.

After the great Indonesian army massacre in East Timor in 1991, the US formally cut its so-called International Military and Education Training Programme for it. But in March 1998 the leaked documents revealed that the US administration had secretly used another little known aid effort - the Joint Combined Exchange and Training Programme - to train the army, in close quarters’ combat, sniper techniques and psychological operations.
Under Section 502-B of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1976, the USA is required to cut off all security assistance to any government, which “engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognised human rights.” In practice, Section 502-B has never been used.

Last week an overwhelming majority of the world, including the US and its Western allies (excluding Russia), signed a historic treaty to control the trade in conventional arms. The Republican-controlled Senate, where it has to be ratified, has said the treaty will be dead on arrival. (The pro-gun National Rifle Association has vowed to fight against ratification, even though until now it has confined itself to domestic legislation, thwarting the banning of military-type weapons and even background checks on would-be gun owners.) But on this issue, Obama has an ace-up his sleeve. He can implement 502-B.

The new treaty prohibits states from exporting conventional weapons in violation of arms embargoes (e.g. to Syria and North Korea) or weapons that could be used for acts of genocide (none at the moment), crimes against humanity and war crimes (e.g. the Congo, Myanmar, Israel and Somalia) and terrorism (e.g. Iran and Pakistan).

“We did it! The world has been waiting a long time for this historic arms treaty…....and now we have it,” said the British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, representing a country that has had a bad record in controlling nationals, who participate in selling under-the-table arms and a terrible record on arms sales corruption.

Russia made a good point at the negotiations, but one mostly ignored by the media. The treaty has a major loophole, it argued. It does not outlaw rebels being supplied with arms. Countries as diverse as the UK and France are supplying or want to supply Syrian opposition groups. Their argument is that a level playing field is necessary if the rebels are to overthrow the Assad regime. But is this not creating a level killing field? The dangers of this can be seen in Libya where the rebel militias, long after the fall of dictator Moammar Gaddafi, control important parts of the country and make it difficult for the government to create its own standing army.

Neither in Libya nor Syria did the outside world give much support to the early non-violent protesters, who might have built up a greater head of steam if they had had outside help and had the world media not given much more prominence to armed militias than to non-violent protesters. Undoubtedly the new treaty is a big achievement, but more clear thinking leading to more steps forward is an imperative.

The writer is a foreign affairs commentator. This article has been reprinted from Khaleej Times.

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-ne...inions/columns

Anything you can do

I can do better,

I can do anything

better than you.

–Irving Berlin,

Annie Get Your Gun

Now that North Korea has declared war on the United States it is time for an historical analysis of how we have arrived at this state of affairs. To do that we must go back at least one month and, for the true history buffs, back as far as 2010 when the United States and South Korea conducted exercises like the ones they are now conducting and for the buffest of all, all the way back to 1951 when members of my generation were given the opportunity to engage in prolonged stays on the Korean peninsula at no personal financial expense, a privilege still accorded more than 28,000 U.S. service personnel. For our purposes, however a one-month analysis would seem to be more than adequate. First a bit of perspective on the two principal players-the United States’ Barack Obama and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un.

Mr Obama is the president of the United States who has governed the country for more than four years, has a lovely wife and two daughters. He attended school in the United States and received an excellent education that has stood him in good stead while acting as president. Kim Jong-un is the leader of North Korea, sometimes described as the “dear respected Marshal” and the “brilliant commander of Mt Paektu.” He attended both a private and a public school in Switzerland but the pacific characteristics of that country did not rub off on him nor did his education seem to have stood him in good stead. He has a young beautiful wife who spends little time in the western limelight.

Following his father’s death in 2011 he became the Supreme Leader of North Korea or, in some North Korean releases “Marshal Kim Jong Un, the greatest ever commander,” thus equalling if not eclipsing both his father and his grandfather. He is a belligerent sort who has barely, if yet, attained age 30. Here is the chronology of how it happened that Mr Kim declared war on the United States.

It started on February 12, 2013, when North Korea conducted a successful nuclear test that greatly annoyed the United States, South Korea and others. In response to the test, on March 7, 2013, the United Nations Security Council imposed new economic sanctions against North Korea which made Mr Kim angry. Accordingly North Korea threatened a “pre-emptive” nuclear strike against the United States. The next day it cut off its hot line with South Korea and voided its non-aggression pact with South Korea. (For a complete timeline during March see The Telegraph’s comprehensive timeline published March 30, 2013.)

Alarmed by North Korea’s unpleasant behaviour, on March 19th the administration (quite unnecessarily some would say) decided to see how far a nuclear B-2 stealth bomber could fly without landing. The plane flew non-stop from the United States to the Korean Peninsula and back, dropping inert munitions on a range off South Korea’s coast. Some thought the administration could have used a calculator to see how far the planes could fly without actually doing it. Of course that would not have had the desired effect described by Gen. Martin E Dempsey who said: “Those exercises are mostly to assure our allies that they can count on us to be prepared and to help them deter conflict.” Although actions speak louder than words it is unclear that these actions did more than words could have done.

What is clear is that the flight really upset Mr Kim. To make matters worse and add insult to injury, on March 25th South Korea said that if North Korea “provokes South Korea… the South may respond with a military strike on [among other things] statues of the North’s nation founder, Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il.” That plus the mock bombing raid was too much for Mr Kim.

He said North Korea was now in a state of war with the United States (even though the US had not threatened the statues) and a statement was issued that said in part: “Now the heroic service personnel and all other people of the DPRK are full of surging anger at the US imperialists’ reckless war provocation moves and the strong will to turn out as one in the death-defying battle with the enemies and achieve a final victory of the great war for national reunification true to the important decision made by Kim Jong Un… They [US] should clearly know that in the era of Marshal Kim Jong Un, the greatest-ever commander, all things are different from what they used to be in the past. The hostile forces will clearly realise the iron will, matchless grit and extraordinary mettle of the brilliant commander of Mt Paektu that the earth cannot exist without Songun Korea. Time has come to stage a do-or-die final battle…” This is only a short segment from a many hundred-word declaration.

In a war of words with the United States Mr Kim is the clear winner and the United States should acknowledge defeat by withdrawing from the field of battle. Insofar as the war of belligerent gestures is concerned it’s a tie. One can’t help wondering what would happen if the United States and its allies withdrew from that battle as well. We’ll probably never know.

The writer is a columnist and lawyer and is well-known for his writings.

- See more at: http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2013....hZROcmKB.dpuf

American presidential candidate Jimmy Carter described arms sales as a “cancer”. But once in office Carter achieved little in controlling them.
In President Bill Clinton’s first term Amnesty International questioned the US government about the use of American military helicopters and armoured vehicles involved in human rights abuses in Turkey. Under pressure from Congress, the State Department compiled a report on human rights violations by the Turkish armed forces. It concluded there was “highly credible” evidence that US-supplied arms and jet fighters had been used to subdue Kurdish villages.

Later, in 1996, the US temporarily suspended the sale of advanced attack helicopters. But two years later there were fresh reports that hundreds more armoured vehicles had been sold. The US defence secretary visited Turkey and reportedly lobbied on behalf of American companies wishing to co-produce advanced helicopters there. In that same year an American company sold 10,000 electric shock weapons to the Turkish police.

In Angola, the US supplied arms for many years to UNITA, the guerrilla movement hostile to the pro-Soviet central government, that helped stoke a war that became so out of control that the country was without any central services to speak of and became the country in Africa, despite its incredible mineral wealth, that was the most ill-fed and disease prone of all. In Nicaragua, arms supplied by the administration of Ronald Reagan in secret defiance of Congressional writ kept alive a civil war that could have been ended much earlier than it eventually was, by compromise and elections.

After the great Indonesian army massacre in East Timor in 1991, the US formally cut its so-called International Military and Education Training Programme for the Indonesian army. But in March 1998 leaked documents revealed that the US government had secretly used another little known aid effort — the Joint Combined Exchange and Training Programme — to train the Indonesian army, including its notorious special forces command, in close quarters’ combat, sniper techniques and psychological operations.
Under Section 502-B of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1976, the US is required to cut off all security assistance to any government, which “engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognised human rights”. In practice Section 502-B has never been used.

Last week an overwhelming majority of the world, including the US and its Western allies (Russia and China excluded), signed an historic treaty to control the trade in conventional arms. The Republican-controlled Senate where the treaty has to be ratified has said the treaty will be dead on arrival. (The pro-gun National Rifle Association has vowed to fight against ratification even though until now it has confined itself to domestic legislation, thwarting the banning of military-type weapons and even background checks on would-be gun owners.) But on this issue Obama has an ace-up his sleeve. He can implement 502-B.

The new treaty prohibits states from exporting conventional weapons in violation of arms embargoes (e.g. to Syria and North Korea) or weapons that could be used for acts of genocide (none at the moment), crimes against humanity and war crimes (e.g. the Congo, Myanmar, Israel and Somalia) and terrorism (e.g. Iran and Pakistan).

“We did it! The world has been waiting a long time for this historic arms treaty ...and now we have it.”, said the British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, representing a country that has had a bad record in controlling nationals who participate in selling under-the-table arms and a terrible record on arms sales corruption.

Russia made a good point at the negotiations, but one mostly ignored by the media. The treaty has a major loophole, it argued. It doesn’t outlaw rebels being supplied with arms. Countries as diverse as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UK and France are supplying or want to supply Syrian opposition groups. Their argument is that a level playing field is necessary if the rebels are to overthrow the Assad regime. But is this not creating a level killing field? The dangers of this can be seen in Libya where the rebel militias, long after the fall of dictator Muammar Gaddafi, control important parts of the country and make it difficult for the government to create its own standing army.

Neither in Libya nor Syria did the outside world give much support to the early non-violent protesters who might have built up a greater head of steam if they had had outside help and had the world media not given much more prominence to armed militias than to non-violent protesters.

Undoubtedly the new treaty is a big achievement but more clear thinking leading to more steps forward is an imperative.

(Jonathan Power is a veteran foreign analyst)

http://www.thefrontierpost.com/category/40/

Let slip the dogmas of war
By Mahir Ali

WRITING in Le Monde Diplomatique a year or so ago, a few months after Kim Jong-il’s demise, Bruce Cumings recalled an encounter with a Soviet diplomat in Pyongyang in 1981, shortly after the Dear Leader had officially been designated the successor to his father, Kim Il-sung.

Asked for his opinion about the younger Kim, Cumings recalls saying: “Well, he doesn’t have his father’s charisma. He’s diminutive, pear-shaped, homely.”

“Oh, you Americans, always thinking about personality,” responded the Soviet counsellor. “Don’t you know they have a bureaucratic bloc behind him? They all rise or fall with him — these people really know how to do this. You should come back in 2020 and see his son take power.”

He was off the mark by a decade, but the anecdote could be seen as an illustration of North Korea’s predictability. One reason why Kim Jong-un’s bellicose pronouncements in recent weeks have generally been taken with a pinch or two of salt is that they broadly conform to a pattern of behaviour. Threats of raining hellfire on Seoul and teaching American imperialists a lesson are inherited rhetorical devices.

They are widely viewed as a means of wringing concessions or aid, be it from the United States, South Korea or China. This time around, they followed the ramping up of United Nations sanctions last month after a rocket launch, and the extent to which the third-generation Kim has gone further than his progenitors in his choice of invective has been seen as a possible effort to impress the dominant North Korean military.

Recent publicity snaps, showing the corpulent Kim pointing towards possible targets as medalled army officers from a decisively older generation look on, tend to reinforce this impression. The North Korean leader is only about 30, with no military experience, hence it’s plausible to assume that he may feel obliged to prove his worthiness as a leader.

Kim Jong-il served as an apprentice for more than a dozen years before assuming power. Kim Jong-un, his youngest son, faced a considerably steeper learning curve: he had less than two years in which to hone his credentials — during which, it has been reported, he was fed a carbohyd-rate-rich diet intended to increase his resemblance to his grandfather.

There is another dimension to his inexperience, however: could it lead him to go too far? More than one observer has noted that the older Kims always left themselves room to step back, whereas the new kid on the block appears to have thrown caution to the winds.

Yet, notwithstanding a warning just days earlier that diplomats should withdraw from Pyongyang because their safety could no longer be guaranteed, the North Korean capital offered no evidence of defensive preparations as it celebrated Kim Il-sung’s 101st birth anniversary on Monday. Recent visitors have also returned with tales of relative normality, with only TV footage providing indications of a nation on a war footing.

South Koreans, too, are reported to be more complacent about the prospects of a military confrontation than they were less than three years ago, when the North sank a submarine and directed an artillery barrage at a South Korean island.

It does not necessarily follow that Kim Jong-un will feel comfortable stepping back without some kind of a militaristic gesture. But it may be no more than a missile test.
There is no good reason to suppose that he would risk suicide by carrying out his threat to nuke the US mainland, even if North Korea has the requisite military capability — which is dubious. He couldn’t possibly be unaware that an attack on the South or on Japan would also entail dire consequences.

US intelligence agencies appear to have little idea about North Korea’s nuclear capabilities, particularly the likelihood of a miniaturised warhead that could be attached to a medium- or long-range missile.

The nation’s internal dynamics are also open to conjecture. Power plays and ructions among the largely uniformed elite are far from inconceivable, but it’s fairly possible that the prospect of an army takeover has often been overstated, not least because the military is already effectively in power and there is no obvious threat to the preferential treatment it receives.

The degree of nationalism in North Korea is not hard to explain, given 35 years of Japanese colonialism, followed in short order by a US-led war that destroyed most of the country and caused millions of civilian deaths. The armistice reached 60 years ago was never consolidated with a full-fledged peace treaty. Kim Jong-un has lately rescinded the armistice, but that probably does not mean much, and the need for lasting peace remains paramount.

North Korea is in many ways a grotesque state, and there can be little doubt that its citizens have suffered tremendously in the past couple of decades, with a devastating famine in the 1990s eventually giving way to mass malnutrition. The US has lately been seeking once again to pressure Pyongyang via Beijing, and suggesting denuclearisation as a precondition for negotiations.

This is a grievously mistaken approach. One thing North Korea has long aspired to is direct bilateral talks with the US.

Former American president Jimmy Carter brought back this impression from a visit to Pyongyang in 2010, and basketball star Dennis Rodman, after spending time with Kim Jong-un earlier this year, brought home the message that the Beloved Successor was hankering for a simple gesture: a phone call from Barack Obama.

“I don’t want to do war,” he told his American guest.

Whether it might lead to a new beginning for the Korean Peninsula is unknowable, but what harm could it possibly do to give it a try? Mr President, pick up that phone.

mahir.dawn@gmail.com

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"Nay! man is evidence against himself. Though he puts forth his excuses." Holy Qur'an (75:14-15)

The latest crisis
By Eric S. Margolis

Korea, wrote the famed German expert on geopolitics, Baron Haushofer, a century ago, was one of the world’s five most strategic areas. So it remains today, as China, Russia, Japan and the US vie for influence on the peninsula and the waters around it.

The latest crisis over Korea began in March with an annual major military exercise by the US and South Korea designed to simulate an invasion of North Korea. The flight of US B-52 and B-2 heavy bombers 30 km from North Korea’s border was a clear warning to North Korea to cease its nuclear programme.
Instead of the usual fulminations against the US and South Korea, the new North Korean dynastic regime of Kim Jung-un issue a blizzard of war threats that included nuclear strikes against the US - something that Pyongyang is quite unable to do. But the storm of hot air raised the danger of an accidental military clash that could quickly escalate to an all-out war in which tactical nuclear weapons might well be used.
Until this past week, the Korean crisis has been more or less run by the Pentagon. Amazingly, South Korea’s tough 600,000-man armed forces are under the command of a US four-star general 60 years after the end of the Korean War, backed up by 28,500 US troops that include a full heavy infantry division,
North Korea calls itself the “true Korea,” denouncing the South as “puppets of the US imperialists.” Interestingly, some studies show that many South Koreans share this view and are proud of North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme though they want no part of its socialism and self-reliant policy know as “juche”.
Now, the US has finally deployed its diplomatic muscle by sending the new Secretary of State John Kerry to Beijing to try to arm-twist China into clamping down on its errant bad boy, North Korea. The result was a joint communiqué calling on the US and China to jointly pursue the de-nuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.
China has long advocated this policy, so nothing new here. But the North American media hailed it as a breakthrough in the crisis. In fact, China is not happy with North Korea’s nuclear programme, but Beijing considers an independent, stable North Korea essential for the security of its highly sensitive northeast region of Manchuria.
Chinese strategists fear the collapse of the Kim dynasty in North Korea would lead to the US-dominated South Korea absorbing the north and even implanting US bases within range of Manchuria and the maritime approaches to Beijing. In 1950, China responded to the advance of US forces onto its Manchurian border, the Yalu River, by intervening in the Korean War with over 1.5 million soldiers.
The collapse of North Korea would also move South Korean and US military power 200 km closer to Russia’s key Far Eastern population and military complex at Vladivostok.
Accordingly, China’s strategy to date has been to talk moderation and issue occasional blasts at North Korea to appease the outside world and its major American trading partner, while quietly ensuring that North Korea remains viable. China supplies all of North Korea’s oil, part of its food, and large amounts of industrial and military spareparts.
North Korea’s Kim Jung-un appears to have climbed too far out on a limb by issuing dire threats that include nuclear war. His problem is to climb back without losing too much face or appearing to be forced by the US.
Prestige is a key factor in dictatorship. An obvious defeat can lead to the dictator’s fall. That’s why Hitler refused to retreat from the death trap at Stalingrad, rightly fearing such a loss of prestige and his mystique of military genius would encourage his domestic foes to move against him.
So Kim will likely need Beijing’s help in ending the crisis, and Beijing will be both happy to do so and end up in a position to demand useful concessions from Washington.
Beijing has been claiming that the US whipped up the current Korea crisis to justify deploying new military forces to Asia and emplacing more anti-missile systems in Alaska and a new one in Guam - all part of President Barack Obama’s much heralded “pivot to Asia.”

The writer is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist. His articles appear in the New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, Gulf Times, Khaleej Times and other news sites in Asia. He is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post, Lew Rockwell and Big Eye. He appears as an expert on foreign affairs on CNN, BBC, France 2, France 24, Fox News, CTV and CBC.

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-ne...-latest-crisis

__________________
"Nay! man is evidence against himself. Though he puts forth his excuses." Holy Qur'an (75:14-15)