US 'what if' policy on Iraq, North
Korea By David Scofield
What
if Iraq had had an arsenal of weapons of mass
destruction (WMD) and was waiting for just the right
moment to unleash indescribable horror on unsuspecting
Americans and their allies around the world? What if
Iraq was secretly abetting Osama bin Laden and his crew
of dedicated Islamist terrorists, funding and equipping
them for a proxy war with the United States?
The
last four years of US foreign policy under President
George W Bush has hinged on "what if" scenarios. Visions
of what "could be" encouraged policies of preemptive war
and a rethink of the very liberal principles and beliefs
the United States was founded on. But these dark
visions, while at least partially successful in winning
another term for President Bush, are nightmare scenarios
that have been proved to have little basis in reality.
Criticism of Bush's "war on terror" and the non
sequitur of including a defanged Iraq in the quest to
rid the world of evildoers have reached a crescendo in
the world beyond the US. In the United Kingdom, by far
America's staunchest and most steadfast ally, analysts
define the Bush approach to security as a "what if"
policy noir, rather than a proactive policy based
on a "what is" analysis of potential threats. The
recently aired BBC 2 documentary The Power of
Nightmares illustrates this strategy. Those with the
"darkest fears become the most powerful", and so it has
become within Bush's America. The war in Iraq was
predicated on a dark vision that was spun into "truth",
a certainty that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the
United States and her allies through programs of WMD
development and proliferation. The claims, vehemently
denied by the Iraqis and largely unsubstantiated by the
United Nations weapons inspectors, supported visions
within the Pentagon and the White House of an Arab
nemesis arming and plotting attacks not only on US
assets, but on America's way of life. So was the message
designed, and so was it disseminated to a threatened and
frightened American public.
Today, as Iraq's
much-discussed WMD stocks have not been found and the US
and the UK are caught in an ever increasing vortex of
violence in Iraq, there is a new and growing danger that
threatens to undermine the stability and security of
Northeast Asia. North Korea poses a credible risk, but
proactive action against this far more threatening and
truculent actor may not, in the wake of Iraq, garner the
regional and international support necessary to usher in
positive change for the northern half of the Korean
Peninsula, where millions suffer and tens of millions
are put at risk by the North's bellicose leadership.
But determination to tackle the North Korean
threat does not rest on "what if" scenarios. Unlike
Iraq, where military action was predicated on what Iraq
might have done and might do, North Korea requires no
such assumptions. Pyongyang is ruled by a mendacious
regime, a terror to its people and tangible,
quantifiable threat to its neighbors. North Korea has,
by its own admission, violated all treaties and
agreements concerning nuclear weapons dating back to
1985 when the government, in a bid to secure
Soviet-built reactors, first joined the
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The thousands fortunate
enough to have escaped North Korea convey the horrors of
gulags, biological experiments on living subjects and
summary execution, all set against a backdrop of fear
and privation.
North Korea, by admission, has
developed and continues to dedicate scarce resources to
further develop its "nuclear deterrent" and has
threatened to wreak nuclear perdition on its neighbors,
most recently on Japan. The leadership has allowed the
starvation of at least a million of its citizens, and
continues to turn a blind eye to suffering beyond the
capital while the highest stratum of government
supporters enjoy the fruits of their compatriots'
misery. Refugees describe a nation that has
institutionalized fear and paranoia, a hostile land
predicated on the "self first" philosophy of
juche (self-reliance) encouraging material and
Epicurean excesses within the highest strata of society
while the masses live below subsistence.
The
most dangerous state in the world was not and still is
not Iraq, though US-led actions have turned it into a
magnet for violence. Still today, in the midst of
insurgency and rebellion, Iraq poses less of a threat to
its immediate region than does North Korea. Yet in the
wake of the rising human toll in Iraq, rallying support
for action against the truly dangerous and despicable
leadership on the northern half of the Korean Peninsula
will become increasingly difficult.
In the
absence of strong international resolve, panaceas of
engagement, predicated as they are on "what if" beliefs
in the inherent rationality and altruism of North
Korea's leadership, a messianic path to rapprochement
predicated on unwavering faith becomes, in the absence
of a superpower determined to bring change, de facto
policy in dealing with the North Korea threat. What if
Kim Jong-il mends his ways, abandons his military-first
philosophy, ceases threatening the region and
reciprocally engages others in the spirit of peace and
reconciliation? What if?
What if we've just
gotten the Dear Leader wrong and North Korea is the
misunderstood underachiever South Korea's present
leadership maintains? Like similar views concerning the
inherent danger of Iraq before the US-led invasion, the
"what if" approach to the North Korea issue is equally,
if inversely, flawed. Just as there was no evidence that
Iraq had and was capable of deploying and projecting
nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, so too is there
no evidence that North Korea is looking to give up its
hold on nukes or abandon its callous system of
deprivation the great majority of North Koreans must
endure.
Today in Iraq, "what is" is a country
deeply divided and certainly far more dangerous
domestically than it was before the war. "What is" in
North Korea is a country committed to the development
and likely proliferation of WMD in an effort to empower
further the cabal that rules the country. South Korean
government rhetoric notwithstanding, the "what is" of
the present reconciliation strategy is a North Korean
government content to continue to extract concessions,
and resources from a pliant Southern "partner" while
offering nothing in return and growing ever more
dangerous in the interim.
Nightmare "what if"
scenarios have encouraged the misapplication of what is
an apt policy of proactive force projection toward a
greater good. Long-term security, stability and peace on
the Korean Peninsula can only be realized by addressing
the "what is", what really is, not the "what if" of
North Korea.
David Scofield, former
lecturer at the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies,
Kyung Hee University, is currently conducting
post-graduate research at the School of East Asian
Studies, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
