Bob Dreyfuss | The Nation

Kim Jong Un waves during a mass meeting at a stadium in Pyongyang. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File Photo.)

Happy Birthday, Kim Jong Un! Now, calm down.

So far, at least, the Young ‘Un resisted the urge to fire a missile off for his birthday. While it’s fair to hope that he’ll continue that restraint and join talks that Secretary of State John Kerry has suggested, the North Korean leader gives the term unpredictable new meaning, so it’s entirely possible that the simmering crisis in the Koreas could escalate.

The conventional wisdom among the Obama administration and various former national security officials is that even if North Korea does fire its missile, it will be the exclamation point ending the current flap, allowing Kim to thump his chest and call it a triumph before seeking some resolution to the mess. But maybe not. Even if the United States doesn’t shoot down the missile, which would spoil Kim’s party, it could be the prelude to further escalation, too, given Kim’s volatility. And even a small-scale escalation—say, something like an artillery or torpedo attack on a South Korean position, which isn’t without precedent—could trigger a South Korean and US response, leading to an escalation spiral.

So far, the Obama administration has downplayed the urgency of the North Korean threat in the immediate term, but at the same time it has responded militarily by dispatching stealth bombers, carrying out military exercises, and talking loudly about new missile-defense systems. Why, exactly, the United States needs to tout missile-defense systems that won’t be in place for years and may not work anyway, rather than quietly install them, isn’t clear. North Korea does not have missiles that can strike the United States, and it does not have the ability to miniaturize whatever nuclear bombs it does have to put them in a missile warhead, anyway. So the crisis, to the extent that it’s worrying, is mostly confined to the Korean peninsula.

Indeed, in its threatening maps and targeting plans, North Korea apparently confused the location of the US-based NORAD command center based in Colorado Springs, locating it instead somewhere in Louisiana.

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Last week, in a leak that was either deliberate or not, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) broke ranks with the rest of the administration and its intelligence agency colleagues by saying that North Korea had made major advances in nuclear missile technology. The DIA, of course, is the selfsame agency that promoted the Iraq nuclear hysteria in 2002-2003, even more so than other agencies, especially the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) and, to a lesser extent, the CIA. An errant, classified paragraph in a DIA report called “Dynamic Threat Assessment 8099: North Korea Nuclear Weapons Program (March 2013),” released to Congress and then highlighted by a Republican member, Representative Doug Lamborn, said:

DIA assesses with moderate confidence the North currently has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles, however the reliability will be low.

Immediately afterwards, both the Defense Department and James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, tried to quiet things down. Said the DOD spokesman:

It would be inaccurate to suggest that the North Korean regime has fully tested, developed or demonstrated the kinds of nuclear capabilities referenced in the passage.

And Clapper:

North Korea has not yet demonstrated the full range of capabilities necessary for a nuclear armed missile.

Traveling through Asia last week and this past weekend, Kerry first sought China’s assistance to deal with their wayward ally, and then properly proposed diplomacy to calm the situation. According to the New York Times:

Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday that the United States was prepared to reach out to Kim Jong-un of North Korea if he made the first move to abandon his nuclear weapons program.

And he suggested that the United States might abandon its plans to beef up missile defenses:

The president of the United States deployed some additional missile defense capacity precisely because of the threat of North Korea. And it is logical that if the threat of North Korea disappears because the peninsula denuclearizes, then obviously that threat no longer mandates that kind of posture.

But denuclearization is, it would seem, a long way off. Kim may or may not want to talk—according to unofficial, tattooed envoy Dennis Rodman, Kim wants a call from Obama—but the United States can’t wait for a commitment from Kim that he will halt or eliminate his nuclear program before it talks to Pyongyang.

Unlike the fabricated crisis over Iran, North Korea is closer to being a real threat. Iran has no nuclear weapons, it has no long-range missiles, its enriched uranium is mostly contained in fuel rods for its research reactor that can’t easily be reconverted into bomb fuel, it is cooperating closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and so far there’s no sign that it has either militarized its program or decided to make a bomb. In contrast, North Korea does have a bomb, it is working on an advanced missile program, and its dictatorial regime is far more centralized than Iran’s quasi-democratic, multipolar one. Maybe all that the Young ‘Un wants is attention. If so, he’s got it.

As North Korea and Iran continue in their traditional bogeyman roles, Barack Obama is being pressured to intervene in Syria, Robert Dreyfuss writes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and President Obama, May 20, 2011. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

It’s no surprise that the latest round of talks between Iran and the P5+1 ended with no deal. That much was predicted by all, especially since Iran is getting ready for what promises to be a contentious and controversial presidential election in June. But it’s instructive to contrast the reactions from American officials and Israeli officials to the lack of a breakthrough in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where the talks took place on Friday and Saturday.

Listen first to an American official, speaking on background to The New York Times:

There may not have been a breakthrough, but there also was not a breakdown.

Then, listen to an Israeli official, Yuval Steinitz, the minister of strategic affairs:

This failure was predictable. Israel has already warned that the Iranians are exploiting the talks in order to play for time while making additional progress in enriching uranium for an atomic bomb.… The time has come for the world to take a more assertive stand and make it unequivocally clear to the Iranians that the negotiations games have run their course.

Speaking to The Wall Street Journal on the occasion of Secretary of State John Kerry’s arrival in Israel, Steinitz was even more, well, hysterical, demanding threats and short deadlines:

Israel has already warned that the Iranians are exploiting the talks in order to play for time while making additional progress in enriching uranium for an atomic bomb. Israel believes that without a significant and tangible threat, including a short timetable, it is clear that achieving the dismantling of the nuclear project will not be possible.

But Kerry, and the Obama administration, are having none of that. Said Kerry, in Istanbul on his way to Israel, according to the Journal:

There was somewhat of a gap that remains, obviously, as a consequence of the discussions that they had in Almaty. But the door is still open to doing that, and yes, indeed, it is important to continue to talk and to try to find the common ground.

In other words, calm down, Yuval.

Catherine Ashton, the European negotiator who leads the P5+1, wasn’t happy that the talks ended without an accord and without an agreement to continue on a specific timetable, but she didn’t see the talks as worthless. According to the Associated Press:

Western negotiators noted an improved atmosphere from previous sessions, with Ashton speaking of “a real back and forth between us when were able to discuss details, to pose questions, and to get answers directly.”

She described the better negotiating climate as a “very important element.”

No reason, in other words, to accept Israel’s view that the West needs to set some arbitrary deadline for military action. Indeed, there is absolutely no chance that the United States will choose to use the infamous military option that is always “on the table,” since war with Iran would have incalculable and catastrophic consequences. In fact, Israel is more and more isolated, and its demand for military action is sounding ever more shrill. By now, the Israelis have figured out that the United States and the West aren't going to attack Iran over a nonexistent bomb, and despite their bluster Israel doesn’t have the capacity to go it alone.

Meanwhile, both China and Russia have clearly stated that the P5+1 must recognize Iran’s right to enrich uranium, and the more they repeat that view the more the United States and its Western allies will have to move overtly in that direction as part of a deal. So far, Washington has resisted a forthright declaration that Iran has the right to enrich, though it’s increasingly recognized in Washington that no resolution to the standoff is possible without including that in a final package.

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Inside Iran, candidates for president and their allies, inside and outside Iran’s parliament, are competing with each other to defend Iran’s nuclear program and its right to enrich, and they’re lining up to blame the United States and the West for refusing to accept the idea. For that reason alone, it’s inconceivable that Iran would capitulate to the United States, especially because doing so would make it appear as if strict economic sanctions against Iran forced its leaders to give in.

If the Iranian election goes smoothly, far from certain after the chaos that followed the 2009 reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it’s possible that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will be ready for a deal in the fall. As I’ve written often, for President Obama it will be easier to make a deal then, too, since the president he’ll be dealing with won’t be named Ahmadinejad, whose bombast has made him politically radioactive in American politics.

Is Keystone XL the Stonewall of the climate movement? Read Bill McKibben's take.

Chuck Hagel delivers his speech at the National Defense University Wednesday. (DoD Photo/Glenn Fawcett.)

As promised, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel delivered his speech on defense policy at National Defense University on Wednesday, and it left a lot to be desired.

His goal, he said, was to discuss “the challenges posed by a changing strategic landscape and new budget 
constraints, the choices we have in responding to these challenges, and the opportunities that exist to fundamentally reshape the defense enterprise to 
better reflect 21^st century realities.”

I’m not sure that most secretaries of defense—certainly not Bob Gates and Leon Panetta, Hagel’s predecessors—would see the budget constraints that face DoD as an “opportunity.” Both warned constantly, and incessantly, that budget cuts at DoD would be some sort of catastrophe, so at least on that score Hagel’s speech was less alarmist and more, well, realist.

The threat to US security presented by Hagel was centered on “violent extremism” (i.e., what’s left of the Global War on Terror) which “persists and continues to emanate from weak states and ungoverned spaces in the Middle East and North Africa.” That, plus cyberwarfare and other threats, including “the uncertain implications of environmental degradation,” is what the United States has to worry about.

But when he got to budgets, Hagel went off the tracks. Today, he said, the Pentagon has to deal with its challenges “with significantly less resources than the Department has had in the past.” But that’s not true. Yes, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are pretty much over, but stripped of the costs of those wars, Pentagon spending hasn’t fallen much if at all—at least not yet. Slashing the bloated DoD budget ought to be Hagel’s, and Obama’s, job during the next four years.

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Hagel did cite Gates’ comment that “the post-9/11 ‘gusher’ of defense spending was coming to an end.” Would that it were. The modest, $487 billion reduction over the next decade that Gates and Panetta set into motion hardly bites at all into DoD’s $6 trillion-plus over the next decade. And the sequester, if it actually happens over the long term, is still small potatos. Still, Hagel didn’t express alarm in saying:

The Department of Defense has been preparing for this inevitable downturn in defense budgets, and has taken significant steps to reduce spending and adapt to the new strategic environment.

Hagel noted that some reductions here and there are being made because of sequestration, of course. But DoD isn’t worried.

A sensible comment by Hagel was this one:

It is already clear to me that any serious effort to reform and reshape our defense enterprise must confront the principal drivers of growth in the Department’s base budget—namely acquisitions, personnel costs and overhead.

Duh. That’s where the big bucks are: uber-expensive weapons systems, salaries (especially for the top-heavy officer corps, including way, way too many generals), and overhead (including the costly, gold-plated DoD healthcare program). Happily enough, Hagel quoted a former Navy chief saying that DoD could change from “an agency protecting the nation to an agency administering benefit programs.” Indeed, the lingering costs of the $6 trillion wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are centered on health care and pension benefits for veterans, among other items.

Most of the rest of his speech was boilerplate about reforms, reorganization, efficiency and so on—all without specifics. And he concluded:

During this period of budget turmoil, and after a financial crisis and a decade where our country has grown weary of war and skeptical of foreign engagements, questions arise about the merits of America’s global leadership.

America does not have the luxury of retrenchment—we have too many global interests at stake, including our security, prosperity and future. If we refuse to lead, something, someone will fill the vacuum.

Well, no they won’t. Who, exactly? Russia? China? Not likely. And what “vacuum,” exactly? Nature may abhor a vacuum, but it isn’t the job of the United States to go stumbling into every regional conflict, humanitarian crisis, failed state and would-be terrorist nest that arises. Whatever those things are, they’re not “vacuum” to be filled.

Nice try, Chuck. Now let’s see some numbers and hear some specifics. In the meantime, by the way, leave Iran alone, stay out of Syria, and forget the so-called Asia “pivot.”

Read what Robert Dreyfuss was hoping to hear from Hagel this week.

Barack Obama meets with Dmitry Medvedev in 2009. Some conservatives have accused Obama of being soft on Russia. (AP Photo/Jim Young.)

Not often do you get a near-complete summary of just about everything that President Obama is doing right when it comes to arms control, disarmament, and related topics, but there it is in the pages of the Washington Post. Let’s remember to thank Douglas Feith, Jim Woolsey, and the rest of the hardy band of hawks and neoconservatives who, despite their staggering blunders of 2001-2005, keep on tickin’.

In an op-ed entitled “Obama’s ‘nuclear-zero’ rhetoric is dangerous," Feith, Woolsey et al. give the president a backhanded compliment for having “good and idealistic intentions,” but then go on to accuse him of being soft on North Korea, Iran, Russia and other would-be foes and of adopting policies that will lead allies, from Asia to the Middle East, to build more (not less) nukes.

Happily, they provide us with seven items that Obama touts when speaking to "audiences gratified by talk of disarmament,” i.e., pretty much everyone in the world except for Feith, Woolsey and their friends:

When Obama administration officials speak of nuclear weapons, they generally focus on audiences gratified by talk of disarmament, especially US disarmament. Hence, the administration’s (1) opposition to developing a reliable, new nuclear warhead; (2) opposition to ever testing our warheads again; (3) support for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; (4) support for deep new cuts in nuclear force levels; (5) eagerness for a new treaty with Russia to make such cuts a legal requirement; (6) hints of funding cuts for US nuclear infrastructure (in violation of earlier promises to increase such funding, which were pledged in 2010 to win Senate votes for the “New START” nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia); and (7) endorsement of “nuclear zero.”

All good ideas, as far as I’m concerned, though it would be good if Obama made each one a slightly higher priority.

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The op-ed was a distillation of an Open Letter to Obama from a larger flock of 20 hawks, including John Bolton, who urged the president to beef up America’s nukes, not cut them:

According to published reports, you are considering further, draconian and perhaps unilateral cuts in the numbers of nuclear weapons in our arsenal. We respectfully recommend that this plan be abandoned in favor of the fulfillment of commitments you made at the time of the New START Treaty to: modernize all three legs of the Triad; ensure the safety and deterrent effectiveness of the weapons with which they are equipped; and restore the critical industrial base that supports these forces.

You’d think that having been so catastrophically wrong about everything during the administration of George W. Bush, these folks would have a hard time getting the Washington Post to print their op-ed. Apparently not.

Read Robert Dreyfuss on the $6 trillion price tag for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which will be hitting Americans in the wallet for years to come.