As the diplomatic standoff with Iran continues to heat up, Yukiya Amano of Japan today begins his tenure as the new Director General of the IAEA. In an interview with Reuters in February, Amano praised President Obama’s willingness to open dialogue with Iran. But dialogue has not gone well thus far, which prompted exiting Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to declare last Friday that the IAEA’s cooperation with Iran has reached a “dead end.” With these firm farewell words from ElBaradei, it is now Amano’s turn to navigate the technical and political minefield that is the Iranian nuclear program…

Mohamed ElBaradei has been a controversial figure due to his hostile relationship with the Bush administration. During his term, ElBaradei was criticized by Washington for politicizing the IAEA and taking a relatively soft stance on Iran. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice placed much of the blame for Iran’s nuclear developments on ElBaradei’s leadership of the Agency.  She accused ElBaradei of “muddying the message” to Iran and stated that “The IAEA is not in the business of diplomacy. The IAEA is a technical agency…”

In contrast, Amano is known to be more of a technocrat than a diplomat. In his February interview, he stated: “The IAEA’s basic function is not political negotiation but implementing already agreed safeguards. Remarks by the director have political implications which, if made without properly assessing these implications, can be very dangerous.”

In fact, much of Amano’s support in his July 1st election was rooted in the belief that he would “depoliticize” the IAEA in the wake of ElBaradei’s leadership. The AP’s George Jahn noted in July that, “without publicly saying so, the U.S. and its allies had made clear before Tuesday’s voting that they favored Amano because they saw him as someone who would manage the IAEA without thrusting himself into the political fray.”  In a similar vein, UPI explained that, “poor Asian and African nations regard him as too aligned with rich nations.” The developing nations largely supported South African candidate Abdul Minty, who had run for the position on a platform of moderate activism aimed at challenging the nuclear weapon states on disarmament issues.

Amano has tried to deflect concerns that he has a hidden, factional agenda. At a conference shortly after his election, Amano told reporters: “As a national from Japan, I will do my utmost to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. To do that, the solidarity of all the member states, countries of the north, from the south, from east and west, is absolutely necessary.”

Amano has also called for a wider understanding of the IAEA as not only a nuclear watchdog, but also a key facilitator of peaceful nuclear energy use.  He explained that new perceptions of the IAEA as a “dual objective organization” would be “helpful in strengthening confidence in the agency.”

As for how Amano’s vision of a depoliticized IAEA and increased solidarity will play out in the context of the Iranian nuclear issue, NoH wishes the new Director General the best of luck.  He is likely to need it.

Update: James Acton has published a more in-depth analysis of the IAEA’s change in leadership on Carnegie’s website

China remains hesitant to accept the U.S. bottom line on Iran. The two nations this week expressed goodwill and pledged general cooperation on nonproliferation, among other items, but failed to produce concrete plans of action and displayed subtle signs of divergence, as illustrated by today’s press briefing…

The Wall Street Journal described the briefing as an “awkward” affair in which President Obama and President Hu Jintao “exhibited body language that seemed to say they had been frustrated by the entire exercise.” The two presented different tones in their remarks on Iran. Obama’s remarks were forceful: “Our two nations and the rest of our P5-plus-1 partners are unified.  Iran has an opportunity to present and demonstrate its peaceful intentions, but if it fails to take this opportunity there will be consequences.” In contrast, Hu was more oblique: “We both stressed that to uphold the international nuclear nonproliferation regime and to appropriately resolve the Iranian nuclear issue through dialogue and negotiations is very important to stability in the Middle East and in the Gulf region.”

Of the P5+1 countries, China has been the most resistant to ratcheting up pressure on Iran. This is no surprise given China’s dependence on Iran for 12 percent of its crude oil imports. When asked today about China’s plan to help deal with Iran, U.S. National Security Council official Jeffrey Bader replied, “I would not say that we got an answer today from the Chinese, nor did we expect one on the subject.”

Blessing or Blasphemy?

Policy agenda aside, China made serious efforts to make Obama’s visit as enjoyable as possible. According to the Washington Post, China began last week to regulate its market for Obama souvenirs in an attempt to eliminate insulting images. For example, the wildly popular “Oba Mao” memorabilia got the axe while the Obama-Superman figurine made the cut. Superman beats Mao? That will probably not be a victory for the history books.

Obama did stir things up during a town-hall meeting with Chinese students yesterday by discussing the importance of open government and internet freedom.

The Chinese government responded by censoring the dialogue.

While the United States has chastised both Iran and North Korea for their human rights abuses, it has typically kept the issue separate from denuclearization talks. Yet some experts recommend integrating human rights into broader discussions, as opposed to pursuing single-variable negotiations, in order to create valuable synergies within the diplomatic process.

At an event hosted by the National Iranian American Council on November 4, Ambassador Thomas Pickering emphasized the value of integrating human rights into current U.S. outreach to Iran. In his view, introducing more items for discussion broadens the range of diplomatic possibilities and increases chances for success. As opposed to a “grand bargain” with a rigid a priori formula, Pickering proposed a “grand agenda” with the goal of squeezing as many goodies as possible into the final package.

Ambassador John Limbert expounded upon this point, recommending a “firm but polite” approach with Iran. He explained that while “chest-bumping” moralistic statements by the West have proven unsuccessful, a calculated play of the human rights card could create a dilemma for the Iranian regime, which would run the risk of discrediting itself if it did not respond positively to ostensibly well-intentioned concern for its population. Nonproliferation and human rights might be simultaneously strengthened in this type of approach.

Similar reasoning has been applied to the standoff with North Korea. In a New York Times op-ed, Andrei Lankov recommended cultural and informational exchanges to plant seeds for the eventual emergence of North Korean civil society. Another recent report also recommended outreach, including academic and economic exchanges, in order to “spur better behavior by Pyongyang while helping its impoverished citizens.” Of course, the United States would have to reassure North Korea that these exchanges were not a backhanded attempt at regime change. Providing full transparency of all activities would help.

Lankov makes a strong case for the people-to-people strategy: “This is a well-tested approach: It is, essentially, the one that allowed liberal democracies to win the Cold War…it was the West’s economic prosperity and political freedom that irrevocably undermined popular support for Communism.” That may be true, but it is unclear whether or not sociopolitical reform will lead regular Iranians and North Koreans, let alone the ruling regimes, to support denuclearization or other policies more amenable to U.S. interests.

While the human rights-denuclearization link is compelling and policymakers should hope for its effectiveness, there are a few assumptions that are difficult to swallow. The first is that the American government and public will be patient enough to await the positive effects of the approach. The second is that the two regimes will be open to American engagement with their economies and populations. The latter assumption can more reasonably be made vis-à-vis Iran, which has, despite heinous crackdowns, shown concern about sustaining domestic popular support since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. In contrast, North Korea is a totalitarian state with a constitution based on a “military first” (songun) ideology and a public both barred from electing their leaders and isolated from the outside world.

Yesterday, in reaction to these diplomatic developments, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times both ran op-ed pieces discussing Obama’s strategy, the demerits and the merits respectively.  The Wall Street Journal published “Kim Wins Another”, arguing that the U.S. is effectively strengthening North Korea’s hand by reaching out to it.  The article espouses opposition to the Obama strategy, and although it speaks specifically only in regard to North Korea, its position and tone seem implicitly linked also to Iran.  The New York Times published Chester A. Crocker’s “Terms of Engagement”, which argues that critics mischaracterize the nature of Obama’s strategy and do not fully understand the utility of engagement.  Though critical of the Obama Administration’s failure to fully explain the strategy, the article espouses support for the strategy.  Although they are contradictory, both articles are rhetorically credible, and each should each be read.  But in the partisan world that we live in, it is an unfortunate rarity that a reader of WSJ op-eds will also be reading NYT op-eds, and vice versa.

The reader is encouraged to view the articles in their entirety.  Although the articles are not written in direct contradiction to each other—as they each deal with slightly different subject matter and they vary in length—their underlying spirits and their stances on Obama’s engagement strategy do stand in direct contradiction to each other.  Juxtaposition of the two articles is an attempt to circumvent reader partisan bias: the reader must decide for him or herself which position is more compelling without the usual convenience of having the position already pre-chosen.  In promotion of this open-minded approach, I will not give my own opinion.  Instead, I will let the opinions speak for themselves:

Kim Wins Another, The Wall Street Journal, 14 September 2009

Terms of Engagement, by Chester A. Crocker in The New York Times, 13 September 2009

International nuclear policy-makers must better heed developmental politics.  By developmental politics, I refer to the economic disparity between the developed and the developing nations, and the political tensions between these two sides resulting from that disparity.  This may also be referred to as the politics of inequality or the North-South Divide, a rough geoeconomic approximation.  The North-South Divide is alive and kicking in international nuclear issues.

Developmental political tensions have been a centerpiece of the nuclear nonproliferation regime since the establishment of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1970.  The terms of the NPT are characterized by an internal contradiction: five nations (the initial nuclear weapon states) are given legal authorization to possess nuclear weapons while every other nation must forswear them.  In return, the NPT (Article IV) authorizes every nation to have access to civilian nuclear energy, a policy partially aimed at promoting equality amongst nations and assuaging international unease over the NPT’s internal contradiction.  However, Article IV of the NPT did not successfully eliminate international tensions over nuclear development and privileges, particularly because the five nuclear weapon states have arguably not been faithful their duties according to Article VI, which obliges them to move toward nuclear disarmament.

These tensions have resulted in a rough “North-South Divide”, in which the nuclear policies of the developed nation bloc (mostly northern) have been seen as hypocritical and inequitable by the developing nation bloc (mostly southern).  Even though the majority of developed/northern nations do not possess nuclear weapons themselves, their economic and political ties to the nuclear weapon states have afforded them with nuclear deterrence umbrellas (through NATO and other alliances) and civilian nuclear energy programs, thus resulting in a general solidification of a northern nuclear bloc.  China may be considered as an outlier, as it is one of the legitimate nuclear weapon states but often aligns itself with developing nation policies.

The concept of the North-South Divide is featured in social science academic discourses as a response to Modernization Theory

The North-South Divide political tensions have obstructed cooperation and consensus-building in international nuclear issues, but this trend has largely been neglected.  When dealing with international nuclear arms control issues, policy- and law-makers obsess over technocratic approaches and high politics.  Great time and energy has gone into producing comprehensive verification plans, technical fixes, and complex carrot-and-stick approaches.  These things are undoubtedly vital to effective mitigation of nuclear proliferation threats.  In fact, nuclear issues should be considered fundamentally within the realm of high politics as these issues deal with the most destructive force controlled by man.  However, nuclear issues and solutions to these issues are not limited to high politics and technocratic reasoning.  In focusing on these ‘expert’ perspectives, the perspectives that traditionally claim ascendancy in the bureaucratic hierarchy, policy-makers have not been sufficiently cognizant of the North-South Divide.

The Divide Comes into the Limelight

Yukiya Amano

However, the recent election of a new Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Yukiya Amano of Japan, has brought the North-South Divide to the forefront, possibly for the long-run.  Amano’s election on July 1^st came after an extended deadlock, during which Amano competed with South African candidate Abdul Minty.  The two had been contending for the position since an election in March, in which Amano led but could not procure the mandatory two-thirds majority.  Of the 35 member nations represented on the IAEA’s Board of Governors, the developed nations overwhelmingly supported Amano, representing industrialized Japan.  The developing nations mostly supported Minty, who had run for the position on a platform of moderate activism, aimed at challenging the nuclear weapon states on disarmament issues.  Minty’s vision more closely resembled that of departing Director General Mohamed ElBaradei of Egypt, and Amano’s assumption of the position appeared to the developed nations as an agreeable departure from ElBaradei’s own activism.

As several news sources pointed out, the deadlock and close victory of Amano revealed the continuing North-South Divide.  United Press International explained here:

Poor Asian and African nations regard him as too aligned with rich nations. Some European nations believe he isn’t the inclusive candidate that they would like.

And Associated Press writer George Jahn pointed out here:

Without publicly saying so, the U.S. and its allies had made clear before Tuesday’s voting that they favored Amano because they saw him as someone who would manage the IAEA without thrusting himself into the political fray.

The Problem, Practically Speaking

The North-South Divide visible within IAEA politics is far more than trivial bureaucratic drama; the divide has serious practical consequences for the nonproliferation regime.  This political tension has plagued the IAEA’s ability to effectively build consensuses required to investigate suspected nuclear weapons programs, such as that of Iran.  As Jahn explains:

The Iranian investigation in particular has been affected by the deep divide between Western nations, including the United States, and developing countries that accuse the West of being indifferent to the problems of poorer countries.

The industrialized nations have formed robust opposition to the Iranian nuclear development program, claiming that it is ultimately geared towards the production of nuclear weapons.  In contrast, many (perhaps a majority of) developing nations uphold on principle Iran’s claim to the right to its uranium enrichment program for energy purposes, a claim that is tied to Article IV of the NPT.  Despite any of their own fears of Iran’s potential weaponization in the future, developing nations have a stronger affinity for supporting nuclear energy rights than for opposing potential nuclear threats, thereby partially undermining the efforts of the U.S. and its allies to prevent nuclear proliferation in Iran.  This is a direct result of the North-South Divide.  And Iran has been completely aware of this vulnerability in the nonproliferation regime, realizing that the developing world would either believe or feel ethically obliged to support claims that Western opposition to its nuclear program are simply attempts to thwart its development.

Mohamed ElBaradei

It is impossible to determine definitively, but the evidence is quite convincing that Iran is indeed pursuing nuclear weapons capability.  From a practical standpoint, the North-South Divide has provided Iran with a useful political tool to continue its program without serious and unequivocal global opposition.  Let us remember that not everyone, and not every influential political official in the world, has come to the conclusion that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons capability.  One prime example is Mohamed ElBaradei, who has occupied perhaps the most authoritatively important global political role in nuclear affairs.  Diplomacy and foreign relations often seem like a game, where probing, stalling, brinksmanship, rhetoric, and symbolism come into play.  With the exception of the closest of allies, frank discussions between countries are not always common.  In the pursuit of suspicious or dubious goals, any excuse helps.  Iran has capitalized on a prime excuse for pursuing its nuclear program, and for wanting to do so without any Western intervention.  Even with adamant opposition of the part of the U.S. and its allies, such an excuse gives Iran just enough persuasive capital in the eyes of other countries and just enough pause to the U.S. to allow for Iran’s nuclear activities to continue unchallenged.

Whom to Blame?

To this question, many would answer: Mohamed ElBaradei.  After all, it has been on his 12-year watch that Iran, North Korea, and perhaps Syria have defied the nonproliferation regime.  In fact, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice placed great blame for Iran’s activities on the IAEA and its leadership under ElBaradei.  She accused ElBaradei of “muddying the message” to Iran and stated that “The IAEA is not in the business of diplomacy. The IAEA is a technical agency…”  See here.  But Rice’s perspective perhaps does not capture the full spectrum of understandings.  And she seems incorrect in saying that the IAEA is not in the business of diplomacy, because political tensions within the agency have resulted in diplomatic motions, even despite the IAEA’s technical mission.  Whether anyone likes it or not, the IAEA’s technical business cannot be divorced from political maneuvers that result from entrenched ideological conflicts.

This does not excuse ElBaradei.  Perhaps he too should have tempered his principles of global equality with the legitimate worries over emerging nuclear threats.  However, it is possible that the U.S. and its allies can do more as well.

Perhaps the IAEA should not be in the business of diplomacy, as this is the function of individual nations.  And if this is the case, then individual nations must pursue more effective diplomacy.  The developing nations must be more sensitive to the North-South Divide and understand its intricacies.  If the developing nations made it apparent that they were more sensitive to these inequality issues, the results would be significant: the IAEA would find the solidarity required for being an effective nuclear watchdog, countries like Iran would be less capable of claiming legitimacy for its own nuclear program, safeguarded nuclear partnerships would be easier to facilitate, and the nonproliferation regime would become stronger in general.  There are many things that could be done to express this sensitivity, within the nuclear realm and beyond.  The nuclear North-South Divide is part of an overarching North-South Divide, a gap that nations across the world are attempting to close through international development and investment activities.  The developing nations should tie this movement into nuclear issues and better understand how the two are connected.  Rhetorical and diplomatic confidence-building measures could greatly contribute in many ways.  And notably, the nuclear weapons states must make more concerted efforts to display their desire to uphold Article VI of the NPT.

Could Amano Lead the Way?

Despite appearing in the developing world as a sort of icon of nuclear inequality, Yukiya Amano has expressed his understanding of this political tension and his desire to alleviate it.  At a conference shortly following his election, Amano told reporters here:

As a national from Japan, I will do my utmost to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. To do that, the solidarity of all the member states, countries of the north, from the south, from east and west, is absolutely necessary.

Amano has also called for a wider understanding of the IAEA not only as a nuclear watchdog but also as a key facilitator of peaceful nuclear energy use.  He explained that new perceptions of the IAEA as a “dual objective organization” would be “helpful in strengthening confidence in the agency,” thereby identifying the encumbering political divide in the IAEA as tied to nuclear energy access.

It is unclear at this early stage whether Amano, who has been described as more of a technocrat than a diplomat, is simply paying lip service to this political issue or if he truly does plan to incorporate it into his leadership vision.  Much of his support has come from the belief that Amano may be able to “depoliticize” the IAEA in the wake of ElBaradei’s leadership.  However, assuming that his words are genuine, it seems that Amano may turn out to be another politically involved IAEA head, though perhaps with more effective diplomatic tempering than ElBaradei.  Reuters quotes Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London here:

Given the nuclear challenges facing the world and the divisions that have deepened between the ‘haves and have nots’, it’s very important for the IAEA to have a leader who can bridge the differences and bolster its reputation for technical competence and political independence.

Amano may, in fact, be such a leader.

Concluding Remarks

The developing nations must be directly engaged by the developed nations.  They need to be assured that their inequality in terms of access to nuclear power will be appropriately resolved.  They need to be assured that the developed nations understand, empathize, or regret their inequality.  They must not feel neglected or disrespected.  The politics of inequality reaps international envy and bitterness.  This, combined with nuclear technology and international market systems that are impossible to completely monitor, could spell a proliferation nightmare.

With the coming of 20^th-century globalization, humanity has learned quite viscerally that the happenings on one side of the planet can directly affect the other side.  In order to make the nonproliferation regime work, it must work globally.  And in order to make it work globally, the entire globe must work cooperatively, rather than having the developed nations exclusively dictate the terms.  Let us hope that the NPT does not fall apart and that the world does not lose confidence in the nonproliferation regime.  Engaging the politics of inequality, in addition to technocratic fixes and diplomatic pressures, is crucial to seeing that this does not happen.