Responding to recent instances of North Korean saber-rattling, Emily Landau surveys the history of the 1994 “Agreed Framework,” which failed to prevent Pyongyang from developing nuclear weapons, and, subsequently, the Obama administration’s unsuccessful policy of “strategic patience.” Landau argues that the U.S. must avoid making the same mistakes with Iran:
[Y]ears of failed negotiations followed by eight years of strategic patience [have provided] North Korea with the necessary time to advance its programs and perfect its capabilities. While the rollback of North Korea’s nuclear capabilities thus remains an elusive goal, there is a lesson to be learned for dealing with Iran. The Obama administration hailed the [2015 agreement with Tehran] as a nonproliferation success story, but the deal suffers from many critical weaknesses. Chief among them is the expiration date in nine-to-fourteen years when, with sanctions lifted, Iran will be stronger than it was before the negotiations began in 2013, and will have a much more advanced nuclear infrastructure. The Islamic Republic, virtually unhindered, is also rapidly developing its own ballistic-missile program.
The lesson should be clear: . . . there is no short-term benefit to the deal if these initial years are not used effectively to confront Iran for the sake of the long term. Iran has not demonstrated a strategic U-turn in the nuclear realm, and remains a determined proliferator.
Putting pressure on Iran is a proven path to altering its behavior—it is the toughness of the biting sanctions [introduced in] 2012 that brought Iran to the table in 2013. Replacing the pressure tactic with hopes of change in Iran . . . is misguided. . . . Moreover, after securing the agreement, President Obama, in the remaining eighteen months of his tenure, did little in response to repeated Iranian provocations and aggression. Rather than engendering moderation, this policy only served to embolden the regime. If the [U.S. and its allies] continue . . . to relax their vigilance and pressure, they will ultimately face a nuclear threat as intractable as [that posed by] North Korea.
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