The emerging U.S.-Iran agreement is not yet a durable peace but an interim political arrangement designed to halt fighting and create space for nuclear negotiations, retired U.S. Army Col. David Maxwell wrote June 18. He argued that Kim Jong Un will examine the agreement not as a Middle East event but as a case study in how a weaker power can force a stronger power to bargain.
“Kim will study it,” Maxwell wrote in a UPI Voices column. Maxwell is executive director of the Korea Regional Review and spent more than 30 years in the Asia-Indo-Pacific region as a Special Forces officer.
The first lesson Maxwell said Kim will draw is that coercion creates strategic urgency. Iran used geography, missiles, proxies and the threat to global energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz to impose costs that affected oil prices, shipping, markets and domestic politics, according to Maxwell. He wrote that while North Korea does not have Hormuz, it has Seoul, Japan within missile range, and capabilities including cyber operations, special operations forces and nuclear weapons.
The second lesson, Maxwell wrote, is that nuclear weapons are leverage. He said Kim will see Iran as having negotiated as a threshold nuclear state while North Korea is an acknowledged nuclear weapons owner, and that difference will be decisive. “Nuclear weapons prevented North Korea from suffering Iran’s fate,” Maxwell wrote, adding that the lesson will strengthen Kim’s determination never to denuclearize.
The third lesson concerns sanctions. Maxwell wrote that if Iran receives sanctions relief, access to frozen assets, oil export freedom or reconstruction support before a permanent nuclear settlement, Pyongyang will see validation. He described this as “the danger of sequencing.”
Fourth, Maxwell argued that Kim will see time as a weapon. The Kim family regime has survived war, famine, sanctions, isolation and leadership transitions, he wrote. “A regime need not defeat the United States. It only has to survive long enough for Washington to face new elections, new crises, new budget pressures and new strategic distractions,” Maxwell wrote.
The fifth lesson, according to Maxwell, is that ambiguity in interim agreements is useful. Maxwell wrote that Kim will seek front-loaded concessions and back-loaded obligations, delay inspections and dispute definitions.
Maxwell said Kim may conclude that the diplomatic environment favors “extortion from strength” and could return to talks believing he can demand more than Iran because North Korea possesses nuclear weapons. He wrote that Kim’s objectives would include sanctions relief, reduced allied exercises, political legitimacy, economic benefits, arms control in place of denuclearization, and ultimately de facto recognition of North Korea as a permanent nuclear weapons state.
“Kim will exploit the precedent of crisis diplomacy,” Maxwell wrote. “He will exploit any perception that the United States rewards pressure.”
Maxwell said the U.S.-South Korea alliance should reinforce deterrence, tighten sanctions enforcement, expose illicit finance and cyber warfare, and keep human rights central. He noted that North Korea is already nuclear armed, tied to Russia, protected by China, and threatens Seoul, Tokyo, U.S. forces and increasingly the American homeland.
“The danger is not only that Kim rejects diplomacy,” Maxwell wrote. “The greater danger may be that he embraces diplomacy because he believes he can manipulate it better than Iran.”