The study's author, Lora Saalman, concludes that China will confront North Korea or Iran only when doing so plainly advances its narrow interests. But North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong Un, has issued such wild threats to South Korea and the United States -- to the world, for that matter -- that China's leaders have begun to question their role as his sole source of support. That doesn't mean they are about to sign up to a Western campaign of isolation. As China's English-language daily Global Times recently wrote, "China is bound to adjust its North Korean policies, but it doesn't mean it will side with the US, Japan and South Korea. Rather, it will respond to the North's extreme moves which offend China's interests and will make the North correct its moves."
This doesn't mean that the nonproliferation agenda was a mistake -- far from it. Reducing America's nuclear arsenal and changing its doctrine would make sense even if doing so had no effect on anyone else's behavior. And on crucial issues like eliminating the clandestine trade in nuclear equipment and material, Washington can't lead so long as it is seen as a scofflaw. Indeed, in 2010, Obama was able to modestly strengthen the NPT's enforcement provisions.
But the coin of rule-abidingness has not bought as much cooperation, from as many actors, as the president had hoped. As with "engagement" policy generally, Obama has found that better U.S. behavior brings applause from predictable corners (i.e., Europe) without necessarily encouraging refractory actors -- the ones Washington really worries about -- to change their ways. This has been one of the elemental lessons of the last four years.
Obama no longer expects to persuade his adversaries, whether in North Korea or Iran (or the U.S. Congress). Indeed, his policy toward Iran has increasingly come to resemble that of George W. Bush, with punishing sanctions designed to force Tehran to relinquish its program of uranium enrichment. Of course, this isn't working either, as the collapse of the latest round of talks, in Kazakhstan, demonstrates. After all, if the underlying lesson is that states will do what they see as being in their interests, the Iranians can hardly be blamed for refusing to surrender their nuclear program in exchange for nothing more than a modest relaxation of sanctions, which is the offer now on the table. Obama has so far refused to offer more, and in 2010, when Turkey and Brazil, two major non-nuclear states, actually tried their own diplomatic bid to end Iran's nuclear program -- which sounds very much in the spirit of the new nonproliferation regime -- the president swatted them down.
Obama is now laying off the soft stuff and winning some grudging credit for it among hard-liners. On North Korea, there's no meaningful alternative. But on Iran, there just might be. I hope the president still has something up his sleeve.
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