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Jewish World Review May 28, 2009 / 5 Sivan 5769 Israel and the Axis of Evil By Caroline B. Glick
Less than two years ago, on September 6, 2007, the IAF destroyed a North
Korean-built plutonium production facility at Kibar, Syria. The destroyed
installation was a virtual clone of North Korea's Yongbyon plutonium
production facility.
This past March the Swiss daily *Neue Zuercher Zeitung* reported that
Iranian defector Ali Reza Asghari, who before his March 2007 defection to
the US served as a general in Iran's Revolutionary Guards and as deputy
defense minister, divulged that Iran paid for the North Korean facility.
Teheran viewed the installation in Syria as an extension of its own nuclear
program. According to Israeli estimates, Teheran spent between a billion and
two billion dollars for the project.
It can be assumed that Iranian personnel were present in North Korea during
Monday's test. Over the past several years, Iranian nuclear officials have
been on hand for all of North Korea's major tests including its first
nuclear test and its intercontinental ballistic missile test in 2006.
Moreover, it wouldn't be far-fetched to think that North Korea conducted
some level of coordination with Iran regarding the timing of its nuclear
bomb and ballistic missile tests this week. It is hard to imagine that it is
mere coincidence that North Korea's actions came just a week after Iran
tested its solid fuel Sejil-2 missile with a range of two thousand
kilometers.
Aside from their chronological proximity, the main reason it makes sense to
assume that Iran and North Korea coordinated their separate tests is because
North Korea has played a central role in Iran's missile program. Although
Western observers claim that Iran's Sejil-2 is based on Chinese technology
transferred to Iran through Pakistan, the fact is that Iran owes much of its
ballistic missile capacity to North Korea. The Shihab-3 missile for
instance, which forms the backbone of Iran's strategic arm threatening to
Israel and its Arab neighbors is simply an Iranian adaptation of North
Korea's Nodong missile technology. Since at least the early 1990s, North
Korea has been only too happy to proliferate that technology to whoever
wants it. Like Iran, Syria owes much of its own massive missile arsenal to
North Korean proliferation.
Responding Monday to North Korea's nuclear test, US President Barack Obama
said, "North Korea's behavior increases tensions and undermines stability in
Northeast Asia."
While true, North Korea's intimate ties with Iran and Syria show that North
Korea's nuclear program, with its warhead, missile and technological
components, is not a distant threat, limited in scope to faraway East Asia.
It is a multilateral program shared on various levels with Iran and Syria.
Consequently, it endangers not just the likes of Japan and South Korea, but
all nations whose territory and interests are within range of Iranian and
Syrian missiles.
Beyond its impact on Iran's technological and hardware capabilities, North
Korea's nuclear program has had a singular influence on Iran's political
strategy for advancing its nuclear program diplomatically. North Korea has
been a trailblazer in its utilization of a mix of diplomatic aggression and
seeming accommodation to alternately intimidate and persuade its enemies to
take no action against its nuclear program. Iran has followed Pyongyang's
model assiduously. Moreover, Iran has used the international - and
particularly the American response - to various North Korean provocations
over the years to determine how to position itself at any given moment in
order to advance its nuclear program.
For instance, when the US reacted to North Korea's 2006 nuclear and ICBM
tests by reinstating the six-party talks in the hopes of appeasing
Pyongyang, Iran learned that by exhibiting an interest in engaging the US on
its uranium enrichment program it could gain valuable time. Just as North
Korea was able to dissipate Washington's resolve to take action against it
while buying time to advance its program still further through the six-party
talks, so Iran, by seemingly agreeing to a framework for discussing its
uranium enrichment program, has been able to keep the US and Europe at bay
for the past several years.
The Obama administration's impotent response to Pyongyang's ICBM test last
month and its similarly stuttering reaction to North Korea's nuclear test on
Monday have shown Teheran that it no longer needs to even pretend to have an
interest in negotiating aspects of its nuclear program with Washington or
its European counterparts. Whereas appearing interested in reaching an
accommodation with Washington made sense during the Bush presidency when
hawks and doves were competing for the president's ear, today, with the
Obama administration populated solely by doves, Iran, like North Korea
believes it has nothing to gain by pretending to care about accommodating
Washington.
This point was brought home clearly by both Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad's immediate verbal response to the North Korean nuclear test on
Monday and by Iran's provocative launch of warships in the Gulf of Aden the
same day. As Ahmadinejad said, as far the Iranian regime is concerned,
"Iran's nuclear issue is over." There is no reason to talk anymore. Just as
Obama made clear that he intends to do nothing in response to North Korea's
nuclear test, so Iran believes that the President will do nothing to impede
its nuclear program.
Of course it is not simply the administration's policy towards North Korea
that is signaling to Iran that it has no reason to be concerned that the US
will challenge its nuclear aspirations. The US's general Middle East policy,
which conditions US action against Iran's nuclear weapons program on the
prior implementation of an impossible-to-achieve Israel-Palestinian peace
agreement makes it obvious to Teheran that the US will take no action
whatsoever to prevent it from following in North Korea's footsteps and
becoming a nuclear power.
During his press briefing with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu last
Monday, Obama said the US would reassess its commitment to appeasing Iran at
year's end. And early this week it was reported that Obama has instructed
the Defense Department to prepare plans for attacking Iran. Moreover, the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen has made
several recent statement warning of the danger a nuclear-armed Iran will
pose to global security - and by extension, to US national security.
On the surface, all of this seems to indicate that the Obama administration
may be willing to actually do something to prevent Iran from becoming a
nuclear power. Unfortunately though, due to the timeline Obama has set, it
is clear that before he will be ready to lift a finger against Iran, the
mullocracy will have already become a nuclear power.
Israel assesses that Iran will have a sufficient quantity of enriched
uranium to make a nuclear bomb by the end of the year. The US believes that
it could take until mid-2010. At his press briefing last week Obama said
that if the negotiations are deemed a failure, the next step for the US will
be to expand international sanctions against Iran. It can be assumed that
here too, Obama will allow this policy to continue for at least six months
before he will be willing to reconsider it. By that point, in all
likelihood, Iran will already be in possession of a nuclear arsenal.
Beyond Obama's timeline, over the past week, two other developments made it
apparent that regardless of what Iran does, the Obama administration will
not revise its policy of placing its Middle East emphasis on weakening
Israel rather than on stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. First,
last Friday *Yediot Ahronot* reported that at a recent lecture in
Washington, US Lt. General Keith Dayton, who is responsible for training
Palestinian military forces in Jordan stated outright that if Israel does
not surrender Judea and Samaria within two years, the Palestinian forces he
and his fellow American officers are now training at a cost of more than
$300 million will begin killing Israelis.
Even more unsettling than Dayton's certainty that within a short period of
time these US-trained forces will commence murdering Israelis, is his
seeming equanimity in the face of the known consequences of his actions. The
prospect of US-trained Palestinian military forces slaughtering Jews does
not cause Dayton have a second thought about the wisdom of the US's
commitment to building and training a Palestinian army.
Dayton's statement laid bare the disturbing fact even though the
administration is fully aware of the costs of its approach to the
Palestinian conflict with Israel, it is still unwilling to reconsider it.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates just extended Dayton's tour of duty for an
additional two years and gave him the added responsibility of serving as
Obama's Middle East mediator George Mitchell's deputy.
Four days after Dayton's remarks were published, senior American and Israeli
officials met in London. The reported purpose of the high-level meeting was
to discuss how Israel will abide by the administration's demand that it
prohibit all construction inside of Israeli communities in Judea and
Samaria.
What was most notable about the meeting was its timing. By holding the
meeting the day after North Korea tested its bomb and after Iran's
announcement that it rejects the US's offer to negotiate about its nuclear
program, the administration demonstrated that regardless of what Iran does,
Washington's commitment to putting the screws on Israel is not subject to
change.
All of this of course is music to the mullahs' ears. Between America's
impotence against their North Korean allies and its unshakable commitment to
keeping Israel on the hot seat, the Iranians know that they have no reason
to worry about Uncle Sam.
As for Israel, it is a good thing that the IDF has scheduled largest civil
defense drill in the country's history for next week. Between North Korea's
nuclear test, Iran's brazen bellicosity and America's betrayal, it is clear
that the government can do nothing to impact Washington's policies towards
Iran. No destruction of Jewish communities will convince Obama to take
action against Iran.
Today Israel stands alone against the mullahs and their bomb. And this, like
the US's decision to stand down against the Axis of Evil is not subject to
change.
JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Comment by clicking here.
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