Iran deal supporters: Comparisons with 1994 North Korea deal not applicable
North Korea is believed to have about a dozen nuclear weapons, but the number would have been far higher without the 1994 deal, said Robert Gallucci, the U.S. chief negotiator of the Agreed Framework, who, with Wit, wrote recently in theNew York Times that “more than twenty years later (the predicted expansion) still hasn’t happened,” referring to U.S. intelligence estimates decades ago that predicted North Korea could build thirty Nagasaki-size bombs a year by the end of the 1990s.
Supporters of an Iran deal say it differs from the Agreed Framework because of its realistic expectations. The Agreed Framework included full normalization between the United States and North Korea — a high-priority request from North Korea, but a near impossible task for the United States, considering North Korea was on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. The Iran deal, on the other hand, is limited to nuclear issues, and does not seek to end the thirty-six years of mutual U.S.-Iran hostility.
“I would say that’s a strength, because you are not pushing either system farther than it’s prepared to go now,” wrote George Perkovich, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of a twenty-six-point comparison between the Iran and North Korea deals. “The Iranians understand that you’re still going to be talking about human rights, the sanctions on terrorism are still going to be there,” wrote Perkovich. “We understand that somebody’s going to stand up (in Iran) at Friday prayers and say, ‘Death to America.’ They are still going to support Hezbollah. There is an agreement that there is still going to be competition, so it’s less pretend.”
To ensure the success of an Iran deal, lessons from 1994 include the importance of follow through. When the 1994 Agreed Framework was signed, President Bill Clinton vowed in a letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to “use the full powers of my office” to uphold U.S. obligations, but other global issues, including the aftermath of Somalia, the Rwandan genocide, the Bosnian war, and military campaigns in Iraq and Kosovo in the late 1990s soon took priority. The United States also never delivered improved political relations and sanctions relief as promised to North Korea. The Clinton administration did not have “enthusiasm for everything the North Koreans wanted,” in terms of the political payoff, said Gallucci, the lead negotiator.
Iran seeks to avoid the fate of North Korea. “That’s one of the many reasons (the Iranians) want the sanctions relief up front; they don’t trust us at all,” wrote Perkovich. Iran also seeks to keep the deeply buried Fordow facility open with some centrifuges inside, because, according to Perkovich, “that’s leverage if we start reneging.” “You look through the (Iran) agreement — at least what we know so far — there are a number of places where Iran has kept leverage,” wrote Perkovich.
The 1994 Agreed Framework left North Korea “with no latent nuclear capability to deter adversaries … and little leverage to compel other actors to meet its economic and strategic needs.” The Iran deal, however, “would still leave Iran with a latent nuclear deterrent option against states that might mobilize to threaten it strategically,” wrote Perkovich. It is this kind of leverage that compels Iran to honor the pending agreement and the United States to follow through with it. It is also the kind of leverage critics of the Iran deal in Israel and Congress say Iran should never be allowed to have.
