A week ago Friday we learned that Iran has been secretly building a second facility for enriching uranium and that this facility is of a size such that it is only good for producing enriched uranium for weapons. It’s too small to produce uranium for civilian power – even though Iran constantly assures the world that its nuclear program is only for civilian purposes.
Then, two days later, Iran test-fired both short range missiles and medium range missiles.
So what do we do? The military option does not sound good – unless our military has some ideas that are better than those we have seen in the media so far. I hope they do, but we can’t count on it. Which leaves diplomacy.
There are those who think diplomacy and sanctions can work. For example, Gerald F. Seib wrote in The Wall Street Journal last month:
"Still, he [Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s finance minister] acknowledged that sanctions sometimes have impact: ‘They worked in Libya,’ which ultimately succumbed to years of economic pressure from the West and pulled the plug on its nuclear program."
I agree there is much to be learned from the Libyan decision, but I am not sure it is effectiveness of sanctions and economic pressure. North Korea and Iran also think there is much to be learned from Libya’s experience. In fact, we can see in the Libyan example an explanation for much of what North Korea and Iran are doing today.
In understanding why Libya decided, in late 2003 and 2004, to voluntarily give up its nuclear weapons, you have to look at what was happening at time. There had been negotiations and sanctions before, but they hadn’t worked. Then something happened in 2003 which changed Libya’s calculations: the United States invaded Iraq and overthrew Saddam Hussein. As Judith Miller wrote in The Wall Street Journal:
"On Dec. 16, 2003, three days after Saddam Hussein was pulled from his hole near Tikrit, Robert G. Joseph, who headed counterproliferation on the White House National Security Council, flew to London for a secret meeting with his British and Libyan counterparts to discuss how and when Libya would announce the abandonment of its weapons of mass destruction."*
The United States invaded Iraq because we (and the rest of the world) thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Libya knew it had WMD. According to Colonel Gadhafi’s son, his father abandoned his WMD because he had to. "‘Overnight we found ourselves in a different world,’ said Saif, referring to the Sept. 11 attacks. ‘So Libya had to redesign its policies to cope with these new realities.’"**
Ms. Miller continues:
"Mr. [Ma’atouq Mohamed] Ma’atouq [head of Libya’s secret nuclear program] confirmed Saif’s assertion that Libya had decided to renounce the nuclear and WMD programs, after months of debate within Col Gadhafi’s inner circle. He said that Libyan experts had advised Col. Gadhafi that the programs no longer served Libyan national interests. ‘We had discussed many options for securing our state,’ Mr. Ma'atouq recounted. ‘I’m an engineer, a practical man. And I said: Let’s assume we have these weapons. What would we do with them? Who is the target? Who would we use them against? The U.S.? We had no delivery system. Yes, nuclear weapons are a deterrent, but it’s better to have nothing at all than a deterrent without a means of delivery."**
In other words, because Libya had no means of delivering (i.e., effectively using) his nuclear weapons, Colonel Gadhafi decided it was more dangerous to have them than to get rid of them.
That is the lesson that North Korea and Iran have learned from Libya’s decision to give up its WMD; i.e., not that you are better off giving up your nuclear weapons, but that if you are going to have them, you have to have a way to deliver them, too. And that is why Iran’s and North Korea’s missile programs are just as dangerous as their nuclear weapons programs. They are not going to make Colonel Gadhafi’s mistake of having nuclear weapons and not having a way to use them.
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* Judith Miller, "Gadhafi's Leap of Faith," The Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2006.
** Judith Miller, "How Gadhafi' Lost His Groove," The Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2006.
Update (10/3/09 4:35 p.m.): Corrected a typo.
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