Return to Winter. Douglas E. Schoen
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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 to begin in Switzerland.78
Such behavior has been par for the course for Putin. He continues to insist, for instance, that the chemical-weapons attack in August 2013 may not have been the work of Assad. He said: “We talk all the time about the responsibility of the Assad regime if it turns out that they did it, but nobody is asking about the responsibility of the rebels if they did it. We have all the reasons to believe it was a clever provocation.”79
Neither the U.S. nor the UK and France have expressed the slightest doubt that Assad perpetrated the attack. Russia’s ties to Syria make it difficult to take Moscow’s skepticism seriously. Putin has brilliantly used the crisis to paint himself as international peacekeeper. He also tapped into American war exhaustion. “At the time we tried to talk to the UK prime minister about our doubts on Iraq, but they didn’t listen, and look at the result,” he said. “Every day dozens of people die. Do you understand? Every day. What’s the result?”80
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