Asia Times
[Incoming National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan suggests shifts in
China and Iran policies and more engagement with Russia]
By MK Bhadrakumar
January 5, 2021
In his first media interview, the incoming US national security
adviser, Jake Sullivan, has given a preview of the Joe Biden
administration’s foreign-policy directions in regard to Russia, Iran
and China.
Major shifts can be expected in the policies toward both China and
Iran, while selective engagement of Russia is in the cards.
Russia
Sullivan said it was “most likely” that Russia is responsible for the
massive cyberattacks on the US government system, critical
infrastructure and private-sector entities that have come to light
recently. He didn’t want to “telegraph our punches,” but forewarned
that Biden will impose “substantial costs” on Russia.
Biden will “choose his time and place” pending a thorough assessment
regarding the intent of the attack, how far and wide it had spread and
precisely what might result from it. Prima facie, this appears to go
beyond “random opportunities for espionage,” and downstream
destructive action cannot be ruled out.
Biden has told aides that from Day 1, cybersecurity will be “a top
national-security priority of his administration.”
However, Sullivan drew the analogy of the Cold War to point out that
even when the US and the Soviet Union arrayed thousands of nuclear
warheads against each other on “a hair-trigger,” and spoke in
existential terms about their competition with each other, there were
areas of cooperation – “more specifically, on arms control and nuclear
non-proliferation.”
Therefore, the US and Russia “can act in their national interests” to
advance an arms-control and strategic stability agenda amid today’s
tense relations. Sullivan disclosed that Biden has “tasked us to
pursue from right outside the gate” (after the inaugural ceremony on
January 20) the renewal of the New START agreement. He admitted that
the US will have to look at “extending that treaty in the interests of
the United States.”
Sullivan did not expand on this selective engagement with Russia to
include other issues (for example, Syria and Ukraine) or on the need
for cooperation to meet common challenges. But he did not use any
harsh language against “Russian aggression,” let alone call Russia a
“revisionist power.” Nor did he make any critical references to
Russian policies.
Sullivan’s remarks in a measured tone came only days after an unusual
gesture by Russian President Vladimir Putin last week to convey his
Christmas and New Year greetings to Biden, where he touched on the
“the importance of broad international cooperation” in the backdrop of
the Covid-19 pandemic and “other challenges which the world faced.”
Putin went on to express the hope that “by building a relationship in
the spirit of equality and consideration for each other’s interests,
Russia and the United States could contribute much to enhancing
stability and security at the regional and global levels.”
China
As regards China, Sullivan’s extended remarks signaled that Biden’s
approach will be radically different from that of Donald Trump’s
administration.
He criticized Trump for taking on China on its own, while also
“picking fights” with its allies and partners, whereas Biden intends
to “consult with our allies and partners” on how together they can
bring leverage to come to bear on China’s most problematic trade
abuses, including dumping, illegal subsidies for state-owned
enterprises, forced labor and environmental practices that hurt
American workers and farmers and businesses.
Sullivan exuded confidence that Biden’s extensive contacts with
lawmakers in Congress will help push through his China policies. “He
knows his mind on China and he is going to carry forward a strategy
that is not based on politics, not based on being pushed around by
domestic constituencies, but based on the American national
interests.”
Sullivan described it as a “clear-eyed strategy, a strategy that
recognizes that China is a serious strategic competitor to the US that
acts in ways that are at odds with our interests in many ways
including trade.”
At the same time, “it is also a strategy that recognizes that we will
work with China when it is in our interests to do so,” such as on
climate change.
To quote Sullivan, Biden’s strategy will be to work on “our sources of
strength here at home so that we can more effectively compete with
China on technology, economy and innovation, more effectively invest
in our alliances, so as to build up to develop leverages.”
As well, the US will be active in international institutions so that
it is the US and its partners and not China that are “calling the
shots at the key tables on issues ranging from nuclear
non-proliferation to international economics.”
Sullivan said Biden’s strategy will be rooted in a clear assessment of
the challenges the US faces, of America’s national interests, and what
are “the points of strength we can bring to bear in this competition.”
What Sullivan did not say merits careful attention too. Never once did
he mention Trump’s Indo-Pacific strategy or the Quad. He completely
avoided any critical remarks about China or references to contentious
issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang or Tibet.
Sullivan’s characterization of China as a “serious strategic
competitor” differs sharply from the Trump administration’s projection
of China as a rival and irreconcilable enemy and aggressor. Indeed, he
spoke about the imperatives of engagement with China despite
differences.
Iran
Sullivan did not mince words to underscore that Trump’s “maximum
pressure” policy has been a spectacular failure insofar as Iran is
closer to a nuclear weapon today than before and its policies are
posing “continuing, ongoing concerns.”
Clearly, he said, the promises made by the Trump administration – that
the US would extract a better nuclear deal, stop Iran’s malign
behavior and so on – did not bear out. The assassination of Qasem
Soleimani showed that a strategy that is “so focused on one element of
American power and completely sets aside diplomacy” cannot ultimately
help attain the United States’ strategic objectives.
Sullivan reaffirmed Biden’s stance that if Iran comes back into
compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal – that is, reduces its
stockpiles and takes down some of its centrifuges – so that it is
“back in the box,” then the US will also return to the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Significantly, he added: “And that will become the basis of follow-on
negotiation.” Sullivan flagged the following:
Iran’s ballistic missile program “has to be on the table” as part
of follow-on negotiations.
There could be conversations that go beyond the P5 + 1 and
“involve the regional players” as well.
In that “broader negotiation,” we can “ultimately secure limits on
Iran’s ballistic-missile technology,” and that is what the Biden
administration will try to pursue through diplomacy “to address both
the nuclear file and a broader range of regional issues.”
Sullivan, who was instrumental in preparing the ground for the
negotiations leading to the JCPOA, noted that the very logic of the
2015 deal was that it would be narrowly focused on Iran’s nuclear
program, while the US would retain all its capacities – sanctions,
intelligence capability, deterrent capacity – to push back at Iran on
all other issues.
He said the US had made no assumptions that by going into the nuclear
deal, it would change Iran’s behavior on other issues. But what the US
estimated was that if it had the Iranian nuclear program “in a box, it
could then begin to chip away” at some of the other issues.
Sullivan regretted that the US did not pursue “clear-eyed diplomacy
backed by deterrence,” which was the hallmark of what produced the
JCPOA.
Having said that, “it was never fundamentally a part of the nuclear
deal that we had expectations.” Therefore, “as we move forward, we
will look at each of these issues in its own distinctive way, without
presuming that progress on one aspect will necessarily mean progress
on other aspects too.”
To be sure, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will
feel disappointed that the “maximum pressure” strategy is going to be
unceremoniously dumped, and renewed US-Iranian engagement is in the
cards.
Biden apparently sees no problem in associating Saudi Arabia and the
UAE with the forthcoming process of engagement with Iran, but it also
has a flip side insofar as Iran’s missile capability is its deterrence
against the massive arms build-up by those two countries as well as
Israeli belligerence.
Therefore, Iran will not agree to abandon its deterrent capability
unilaterally. And it is unlikely that Israel would disarm or that the
Saudis and Emiratis would agree to curtail their excessive arms
purchases. Arguably, the Western powers themselves may not be
enthusiastic about the highly lucrative West Asian arms bazaar drying
up.
Iran has reacted sharply to Sullivan’s remarks, saying, “as for Iran’s
defense capability, there has never been, there is none and there
won’t be any negotiation.” Suffice to say, the US will have to
incentivize Iran. A rollback of US sanctions, as provided under the
JCPOA, will be a step in that direction.
The bottom line is that Sullivan refrained from demanding any
renegotiation of the JCPOA. He has phrased it as a “follow-on
negotiation.” Now, there is going to be a great sense of urgency in
kickstarting negotiations. Iran’s enriched-uranium stockpiles now
vastly exceed the limit set by the JCPOA.
Iran also announced on Monday that it had already begun the
pre-processing stage of gas injection in the underground Fordow
nuclear site and the first UF6 enriched uranium would be produced “in
a few hours.”
*
M K Bhadrakumar is a former Indian diplomat.