Trump Needs Iran Deal to Engage Russia and North Korea

Tytti Erästö

Security,

Russia would not want to see the U.S. renege on the Iran agreement.

President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to talk to North Korea and improve relations with Russia—the two countries which currently present the greatest challenges on nuclear security. If Trump is serious about pursuing these worthy goals, he must keep the Iran nuclear agreement. Apart from being disastrous in itself, scrapping the deal would doom any attempt by the Trump administration to engage Moscow and Pyongyang.

The Trump administration’s Iran policy will be key for North Korea, as it will constitute an important lesson for the latter about the benefits of diplomacy with the United States. North Korea might be isolated, but its leaders follow world news. And although they have little in common as countries, North Korea and Iran have long been targeted by a similar United States non-proliferation policy, characterized by demonization, coercion, and threats of regime change. That policy was also applied to Iraq and taken to the extreme with the 2003 war – a key factor that prompted North Korea to cross the nuclear threshold.  

The Obama administration tried to break from the coercive model with Iran, and instead opted for a diplomatic solution based on compromise. The change of strategy bore fruit in the form of the 2015 Iran nuclear accord. Although any deal with Pyongyang would look very different, this is certainly the direction that the United States should also pursue with North Korea. However, if North Korea sees that a nuclear deal sealed by one U.S. administration can simply be ripped apart by another administration, what incentive would it have to go down the same road? A United States failure to respect its commitments under the Iran accord would undermine its trustworthiness as a negotiating partner, effectively ruling out any diplomatic efforts with either Iran or North Korea.