De-escalation with North Korea, escalation with Iran

While waves are smoothing out between North and South Korea and a peace agreement is approaching, the signs on Iran are escalating. Trump has revoked the nuclear agreement and again announced sanctions against Iran. Patrick Cockburn with a juxtaposition.

As a journalist, I have always been horrified by reports about meetings between leading heads of state, which were announced as "historic" or "memorable" or simply "significant". Such claims are usually hypocritical - or, if something really interesting happens, its meaning is exaggerated or too simplistic.

However, the cautious reporter can not always appeal to "plus ça change" because occasionally real changes take place and surprise professional cynics.

It was hardly possible not to be infected by the enthusiastic atmosphere when, this weekend (27-29 April 2018, translator's note), I observed the "historic" meeting of the two Heads of State of North and South Korea at the Panmunyom border crossing and listened to the reporters almost knocking themselves over with excitement.

However, I remember other meetings that were once touted as "world-enhancing" and are now largely forgotten. Who remembers the summit between Reagan and Gorbachev in 1986, which once seemed so important? And then there was this famous handshake of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn, which in 1993 sealed a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine. Whatever happened afterwards, the handshake did not reach a peace.

Two years later, Rabin was assassinated by a religious fanatic and Arafat died when his hopes for a Palestinian right of self-determination were shattered. Skeptics who had argued that the disparity between Israel and Palestine in terms of their political and military strength was too big for a real deal were ultimately right.

The meeting in Panmunjong seems to have more substance, especially because the balance of power between the two is more balanced: Kim has nuclear weapons and claims to own a ballistic missile with a range to the US. Range and reliability may be exaggerated - but no one wants to find out how hard it is with the hard way.

These intercontinental ballistic missiles cause Washington and the rest of the world to take North Korea seriously as a state, even though it is a minor, economically backward family dictatorship.

Despite Kim's assurance that he's targeting a Korean peninsula without nuclear weapons, that's probably the last thing that's going to happen. He would be stupid if he gave up his only serious negotiating stocking. North Korea has long lured with atomic concessions, only to withdraw them later.

However, that does not mean that nothing important is going on at the moment. The relations between North and South Korea are becoming symbolic and - as far as we can see - practically normalized. There will be a formal end to the Korean War, which will replace the 1953 ceasefire, and an end to the "hostilities" between the two states, family reunions, road and rail links, and joint sporting events. The ritual propaganda broadcasting across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) should cease, although it would be interesting to know if the minefields of the DMZ are being removed as well.

President Trump claims for himself that his bellicose Twitter messages and harsh sanctions forced Kim to negotiate. Maybe they also contributed to it; However, there are clear limits to the effects of sanctions on a dictator who is firmly in the saddle - remember the sanctions against Saddam Hussein's Iraq between 1990 and 2003. Trump's threats of "fire and anger" may have intimidated the head of state or North Korea but not - but they certainly make US allies nervous and reduce their willingness to let their fate be determined unilaterally by an unpredictable and dysfunctional government in Washington.

Let's draw a comparison of the de-escalating crisis over North Korea's nuclear weapons with the escalating crisis that affects the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which Trump is likely to revoke for the US on May 12. This brings us to the second international meeting this week, this time between Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron in Washington, where little more was to be seen than artificial joviality.

The meeting is one of the worst kind of state visit - to the way governments and the media team up to give the impression that there was genuine friendship and consent. Pecks and handshakes were exchanged, and pictures of Trump, who dandruffed Macrons jacket, went around the world as if they mattered. Previously, reporters used the cheesy phrase "interpersonal chemistry" to describe a nonexistent heat between heads of state; this is replaced today by "trusting relationship", which is hardly less repugnant.

Strong emotional bonds between Trump and others seem unlikely given his manic selfishness.

It resembles an eighteenth-century monarch residing in a royal household with an ever-changing crowd of courtiers who are powerful today and will be released tomorrow.

Some US commentators have found reasons why the two need to understand each other. I particularly like a tweet from "The Discourse Lover," who sarcastically writes, "I'll bet Trump and Macron get along really well - Trump is just the type of more vulgar, more profit-making Fool, for whom the French hold all Americans, and Macron is exactly the type of spiked, arrogant creep that Americans consider typically French. "

Macron had no illusions that his "trusting relationship" would help him on Iran. He confirmed that Trump would most likely, "for domestic reasons," end the nuclear deal with Iran and impose "very harsh sanctions" on the state. Angela Merkel is in Washington today (30 April, translator's note) but is unlikely to change Trump's attitude towards Iran or any other issues.

The Iran crisis is very dangerous - as dangerous as the North Korean crisis has never been.

In Korea, we are talking about a peace agreement that will replace the Panmunjom armistice of 1953, but apart from a few sporadic clashes, there was no 65-year war. Compare this with the position of Iran, which is competing with the US for influence in a cruel war in Syria as well as Iraq. The war in Iraq is currently dying, but could flare up again at any time.

The crisis in relations between the US and Iran has been around for so long - essentially since the fall of the Shah in 1979 - that people may be too dulled to respond to its last and most dangerous phase. Trump will withdraw from an agreement in which all signatories - the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China - agree that Iran meets all conditions. The US will again impose sanctions on Iran, which will hurt Iran, but will not be as painful as the ones before the 2015 agreement because the US can expect much less international support this time.

Iran will inevitably re-activate all or part of the nuclear program suspended by the 2015 agreement because it will no longer benefit from compliance with the agreement. Trump may want to negotiate a tougher deal, but his arbitrary actions have limited the US diplomatic and economic leeway he needs. Iran may also be very wary of Trump's demarche to isolate the US and pull out a crisis that will weaken the Americans more than the Iranians.

In the absence of diplomatic options, the White House may see a military operation against Iran as an increasingly tempting approach.

The Iran crisis and the North Korean crisis are very different, but in both cases Trump behaves as if the US is strengthening, though, thanks to its leadership, it is indeed losing influence.

Patrick Cockburn is an Irish journalist and since 1979 a correspondent in the Middle East, first for the Financial Times, since 1990 for the Independent.