Sound far-fetched? Not to close observers of the situation.
Iranians have been present at every North Korean nuclear and missile test.66 Iranian engineers attended the North’s April 2012 launch of the Unha-3 long-range missile. That launch failed, but the Iranians helped analyze the failure and address the problems.67 “For more than a decade, Pyongyang and Tehran have run what is essentially a joint missile-development program,” says Gordon Chang. And North Korea “almost certainly provides missile flight-test data to Iran.”68
Are the Iranians using North Korea as a conduit for their own nuclear ambitions? Hard evidence so far is lacking, but the connections and circumstances all point to the fact that North Korea is selling the Iranians nuclear technology in a mutually beneficial relationship that gives the Iranians the know-how they need while providing Pyongyang with economic and political assistance. Despite some advancement on this front, at least vis-à-vis Iran, an Iran–North Korea nuclear-proliferation nexus would negate American efforts to restrict Iran’s weapons-development programs, because North Korea already has a nuclear weapon and could transfer it at will.69
The likely Iran–North Korea collaboration underscores an important point: The United States is up against a series of Axis relationships, not just that involving Russia and China or those involving their rogue-state clients. The rogues themselves work together, both in concert with and independent of their sponsors.
In 2011, Al Jazeera reported on a leaked UN report indicating that “North Korea and Iran have been exchanging ballistic-missile technology in violation of UN sanctions.” The report suggested that the two countries transferred prohibited technologies “on regular scheduled flights of Air Koryo and Iran Air.” Even more explosively, it indicated, through several diplomats who insisted on anonymity, that a third country had served as an outlet for the transfers—China.70
The growing Iran–North Korea partnership masks the fact that, on the surface at least, the two nations appear about as different from each other as can be imagined. North Korea is an impoverished, secular dictatorship in Asia, while Iran is a Middle East theocracy with a growing middle class. The basis of their relationship is not history or culture, but rather a common enemy and a willingness to work with each other in spite of international isolation. Iran provides North Korea with foreign currency, which, due to oil sales, it has in reasonable abundance, while North Korea sends Iran missiles and other weapons technologies unobtainable elsewhere.71
It is this nexus that Claudia Rosett refers to as the “axis of proliferation.” As Rosett points out, the two nations make nearly perfect partners:
Iran, with its visions of empire, has oil money. Cash-hungry North Korea has nuclear technology, an outlaw willingness to conduct tests, and long experience in wielding its nuclear ventures to extort concessions from the U.S. and its allies. Both countries are adept at spinning webs of front companies to dodge sanctions. Both are enriching uranium. The stage is set for North Korea, having shopped ever more sophisticated missiles to Iran, to perfect and deliver the warheads to go with them.72
In September 2012, a North Korean delegation traveled to Tehran to attend the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit. During the summit or shortly afterward, North Korea and Iran signed a Scientific Cooperation Agreement, described by North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency as covering “cooperation in science, technology, and education.” The agreement strongly resembled the one North Korea signed with Syria in 2002, which led directly to the Syrians’ development of a nuclear reactor to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. That reactor, based on the North Korean one in Yongbyon, was nearly finished by 2007, when Israel destroyed it with an air strike.73
At the NAM summit, North Korea was represented by the same official—head of North Korea’s parliament, Kim Yong Nam—who headed the North Korean delegation to Syria in 2002. Parties to the agreement signed between the two countries included not only Iran’s former president, Ahmadinejad, but also the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani—blacklisted by the UN in 2007 for his involvement in “nuclear or ballistic missile activities.”74 As the agreement was signed, Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, told Kim Yong Nam: “The Islamic Republic of Iran and North Korea have common enemies since the arrogant powers can’t bear independent governments.”75 No one needed to be reminded of who the arrogant powers were.
Troubling as all of this is, it gets worse: Strong evidence points to both countries’ participation in what Rosett calls “the evolving global webs of illicit proliferation activities.” Both countries were involved, for example, in the nuclear-proliferation network run by Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan. These proliferation webs depend heavily on Chinese influence, and Beijing has facilitated these procurement efforts in multiple ways, whether as direct provider or middleman.
There is also compelling, if not yet confirmable, evidence that Iran and North Korea have shared expertise on tunnel construction for military purposes. In 1974, South Korean forces discovered a highly sophisticated system of massive tunnels located under the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea. Equipped with railroads, electricity, and vehicle transports, it was 35,000 meters long.76 A generation later, in the wake of the Israeli–Hezbollah war of 2006, Israeli forces discovered large networks of tunnels close to the Israeli border that were extraordinarily similar to those constructed under the Korean DMZ. As part of its schemes to bring in foreign capital, North Korea in the past has been known to lend out its tunneling expertise for a price.
Ronen Bergman, a senior officer in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard who defected, said, “Thanks to the presence of hundreds of Iranian engineers and technicians, and experts from North Korea who were brought in by Iranian diplomats . . . Hezbollah succeeded in building a 25-kilometer subterranean strip in South Lebanon.” Indeed, Beirut officials believe it likely that Iranian sources passed the tunnel-construction blueprints on to Hezbollah, having obtained them first from North Korea.77
Barring an almost impossible coincidence, the tunnels in Lebanon were based on North Korean plans—meaning that either the North Koreans built the tunnels or Iran passed the plans on to Hezbollah. Either way, the tunnels episode makes clear how Iran and North Korea, already dangerous enough themselves, can serve as enablers of technology proliferation for still more dangerous, unpredictable third parties. In this case, the technology involved only tunnels. Next time, it might involve nukes.
SYRIA
“We have never changed our position on Syria and we never will”—thus Alexander Lukashevich, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, summarized Moscow’s outlook in December 2012, just as the international community seemed to be moving toward a consensus that Assad’s days as Syria’s president were numbered. Like the Russian diplomat who said he’d rather have a nuclear Iran than a pro-American Iran, the statement reveals Russia’s true priorities and loyalties. They may talk encouragingly and make a few half-helpful gestures, but in the end, they will stay on the side of their ally and client.
Recent developments—including Russia’s move to author the UN resolution on Syria’s chemical weapons—don’t change the reality of Lukashevich’s words. The resulting UN resolution contained no threat of force if Syria failed to comply with the disarmament terms. And while Assad will have to surrender his chemical weapons, Putin also took steps to keep the Syrian regime well armed otherwise. A major Reuters report in January 2014 reported that Russia had “stepped up supplies of military gear to Syria, including armored vehicles, drones and guided bombs, boosting President Bashar al-Assad just as rebel infighting has weakened the insurgency against him.” The supply of arms from Moscow came shortly before peace talks were scheduled