The unanticipated victory of the ruling Saenuri Party has put Park Geun-hye back in the driver’s seat as the front runner candidate in the latest opinion polls, but the presidential election is still seven months away, an eternity in South Korean politics.

The Asan Institute’s Woo Jung-yeop has analyzed the parliamentary vote in a Council on Foreign Relations Other Report, in which he concludes that the opposition Democratic Unification Party (DUP) was hurt by its decision to form a grand coalition, which pulled its campaign strategy to the left.  The DUP’s decision to run an anti-President Lee Myung-bak campaign failed as a result of internal discipline problems, especially the decision by anti-Lee podcaster and comedian Kim Young-min not to step down days before the election, despite widespread public criticism for past foul-mouthed and politically inappropriate remarks.  Moreover, the DUP’s effort to ride a wave of anti-American sentiment by campaigning against the KORUS FTA and construction of a naval base at Jeju Island foundered, in part, on the flip-flopping of DUP leaders who had initiated both projects when they were in power during the Roh Moo-hyun administration.

Although Park Geun-hye was hailed as an “election queen” following her party’s surprise win, the results provide considerable cautionary information regarding whether her campaign for president this December can be successful. The Saenuri Party lost in Seoul and Kyonggi Province, which comprise almost half of South Korea’s population, and the total number of votes for Saenuri Party candidates was less than for candidates from a combined opposition party.  Despite her apparent advantage, Park has drawn a surprising number of competitors in the ruling party primary, including five-time incumbent lawmaker and Hyundai heir Chong Mong-joon, Gyeonggi Provincial Gov. Kim Moon-soo, and Lee Myung-bak confidant and political strategist Lee Jae-Oh, and several other candidates.

The opposition side had been riding high following the strong performance of Park Won-soon in the by-elections for Seoul mayor, but was badly shaken by the National Assembly loss. The election results appear to have weakened former Roh Moo-hyun chief-of-staff Moon Jae-in, opening the way for others including former opposition leader Sohn Hak-kyu or relative newcomer Gyongsang Provincial Gov. Kim Doo-gwan to climb back into the race. It appears that the winner of any DUP primary contest would still face a run-off with popular SNU professor and IT entrepreneur Ahn Chul-soo, if he finally decides to run for the presidency. A divided opposition candidacy would provide the easiest path to the presidency for Park Geun-hye, who appears to have a solid plurality of support from her longstanding base of support in Kyeongsang Province.

The day after the parliamentary elections last month, the Korea Economic Institute sponsored a discussion of the election result with Victor Cha, Bruce Klingner, and myself, at which we identified two factors likely to shape the presidential election: an issues agenda primarily focused on social welfare policies and efforts to capture the middle ground versus simply mobilizing evenly-divided political bases. It was also argued that the United States is likely to be eager to work with South Korea’s next president regardless of who wins the December election.

Although South Korea’s presidential campaign process is mercifully compressed compared to the U.S. process, past election seasons have proven to be highly volatile, depending on the issues and mood, or “wind” that may arise as dominant influences on Korean voters in any particular election season. 

The parliamentary outcome underscores that conservatives and progressives in South Korea’s political landscape are relatively evenly-divided; for this reason, the traditional rule of thumb in analyzing Korean presidential electoral maneuvering is to expect the unexpected.

Scott A. Snyder is senior fellow for Korea studies and director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was previously a senior associate in the international relations program of The Asia Foundation and Pacific Forum CSIS. He blogs at Asia Unbound, where this piece originally appeared.

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Putin is a leading advocate among Russian leaders of deepening Russia’s Asian connections, and the Pentagon and the White House need to orient their Asian pivot properly to address Moscow’s new Asian orientation. With this in mind, trying to influence Russia’s relationship with China, particularly in the nuclear realm, is especially important, since Putin and other Russians see China as both an opportunity and a challenge. Some clever trilateral diplomacy on the part of the United States could exploit these differences to induce both countries to pursue more benign security policies in Asia and elsewhere.

Russia and China have the world’s two most powerful militaries after that of the United States. China is undertaking perhaps the most comprehensive military modernization program in the world today, while Russia still has approximately the nuclear weapons capacity as the United States. Although trilateral security cooperation has been strong in some cases (such as securing renewal of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty), it has been inadequate in other instances, such as regarding Iran and North Korea, even when none of the three countries want to see the further spread of nuclear weapons.

In confrontation with Washington, Moscow and Beijing could impede realization of important U.S. goals in Asia. Both countries can, for example, veto actions of the U.N. Security Council, a point underscored when they recently collaborated to prevent the Council from adopting more stringent sanctions against Iran and North Korea for its illegal nuclear activities.

In contrast, when they cooperate, the Chinese, Russian and U.S. governments can reinforce global nonproliferation regimes under strain. They also better constrain the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea as well as discourage other national nuclear weapons programs. At the recent P-5 meeting in Vienna, as during earlier P-5 sessions, the three countries joined with Britain and France to call on Iran and North Korea to respect nonproliferation norms. China, Russia, and the United States also have the greatest ability to secure dangerous nuclear material, prevent the transit of nuclear-related items, and influence the deliberations of international and regional institutions that address nuclear arms control and nonproliferation.

This is all occurring against the backdrop of the relationship between the Russian and Chinese governments being perhaps the best it has ever been. They’ve largely resolved their longstanding border disputes, as well as contained their rivalries in Central Asia, the Korean Peninsula, and other regions. The 2001 Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship establishes a basis for extensive bilateral security and defense collaboration. Their leaders engage in numerous high-level exchanges, make many mutually supportive security statements, and cooperate in other ways in support of what both governments refer to as their developing strategic partnership. Their growing two-way commerce and investment has made China the number one foreign trade partner of Russia, and they recently completed an unprecedented joint naval exercise in the Yellow Sea.

Yet, China and Russia continue to differ on certain key issues. For a start, they’ve proven unable to resolve their differences over the price China should pay for natural gas imported from Russia. They also differ in their assessment of Pakistan. Whereas Russian government officials and analysts express concern that Islamist extremists might gain control of dangerous nuclear material from Pakistan or even seize political power themselves, China has strongly backed Pakistan diplomatically and provided its nuclear programs with assistance, helping to augment Pakistan’s potential to balance India, a country that has friendly relations with Russia but not China.  

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Since May 2010, when the P5+1 rightly rejected a proposed fuel swap deal agreed between Turkey, Brazil and Iran (also in Istanbul), diplomacy has stalled. Throughout the latter part of 2010 and into 2011, Iran continued to enrich and stockpile uranium, and the only real developments in the nuclear standoff seemed to be a heightening of rhetoric – and violence. Assassinations of Iranian scientists (many claim by Israel’s security service Mossad) were met with attacks on Israeli targets in India, while EU moves to sanction Iran’s oil brought corresponding Iranian threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil passes.

This year began with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington. Speaking at a meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, he said that Iran’s nuclear program was unquestionably for military purposes: if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck, he vividly declared. Meanwhile, as the U.S. presidential elections near,presumptive Republican challenger Mitt Romney described Obama as “feckless,” comparing him with U.S. President Jimmy Carter during the 1979-1981 hostage crisis.

Likening Obama to Carter, of all U.S. presidents, was a calculated but irresponsible move; rarely has professed concern for the national interest so clearly revealed itself as self-interest. Trying to appeal to a worried U.S. electorate, Romney then promised that under any administration of his Washington would “deal” with the nuclear program permanently, thereby giving those in Tehran urging the Supreme Leader to quit the Non-proliferation Treaty and make a dash for a bomb one more reason to push their case.

All this meant the backdrop to the April talks was far from positive. Only days before they were due to begin, Iran’s conservative press rallied to declare that the West had been cowed and that Iran should continue onwards with enrichment regardless of international opposition. P5+1 diplomats were unsurprisingly sceptical that the talks would yield anything of note and feared more Iranian stalling tactics. Quiet surprise was the feeling afterwards. So far little has happened since, but there’s a discernible change of Iranian tone and with yet more talks scheduled to take place in Baghdad in May. There are, for the first time in years, signs of hope. Why?

Fear. Iran is now under huge pressure. The Iranian economy is in serious trouble; sanctions have intensified the effects of decades of internal financial mismanagement. The targeting of Iranian banks is stifling Iran’s means of doing business internationally, and, critically, its access to foreign exchange earnings. Sanctions on Iranian oil will only make these problems worse. Targeting the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps – now the prime economic player in Iran – is especially astute, as it singles out for punishment the one organization in Iran that has political clout enough to influence Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Direct pressure on Khamenei is the only thing that will work: Iran compromises only on his say so, and he only says so when he feels threatened. Almost ten years ago, in May 2003, shortly after the United States had obliterated the Iraqi Army, Iran offered the U.S. a historic deal via the Swiss ambassador under which it would compromise on its program and normalize relations between the two countries. The deal was reportedly rejected out of hand by then vice-President Dick Cheney (we don’t negotiate with evil was his terse and short-sighted response). Nonetheless, European diplomats at the International Atomic Energy Agency sensed palpable fear in their Iranian counterparts during those early months of 2003; a few months later, in the October 2003 Tehran agreement, Iran agreed to suspend uranium enrichment while talks to resolve the overall crisis continued. Iran subsequently suspended enrichment for two years while vague European promises of more discussions never materialized – largely because without U.S. involvement in negotiations, there was simply nothing of substance they could offer Iran.

Khamenei’s de facto anti-western instincts were (in his eyes) confirmed by this seeming lack of response; and once he gave the order to re-start enrichment there was no going back. Iran has continued with enrichment and the stockpiling of uranium ever since – in fact it has accelerated the process, enriching to 20 percent and announcing (just before Western powers were about to reveal it) the existence of another uranium enrichment plant at Fordow, near the city of Qom. Nothing has since been sufficient to make Tehran change course; certainly, threats of military action have been ineffective.

The reality is that hardliners in Iran believe the West is in decline, and that the United States, so recently bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, won’t risk a third war in a time of financial crisis. Israeli threats are a concern, but Tehran calculates (probably correctly) that Israel doesn’t have the means to effectively strike its nuclear facilities. In fact, many hardliners welcome an attack. Damage would likely be limited and it would give them the excuse to go for a bomb. Perhaps more importantly, in a time of increasing domestic oppression following the 2009 fraudulent elections, not to mention the severe financial hardship many Iranians are facing, it would give them an excuse to rally an understandably hostile populace to their cause in the face of a common enemy.

Military action is not the solution, but nor will merely increasing financial pressure on the Islamic Republic stop the nuclear program. Khamenei and those around him have staked too much political legitimacy on it to climb down now without risking a dangerous loss of credibility. An increased inspector presence and supervised, limited enrichment (to civil levels – 5 percent) on Iranian soil have all been suggested and are workable and sensible solutions. But they don’t deal with the real issue, which is not a technical but a wider political problem between Iran and the West.

Iran isn’t North Korea; it resents international isolation, which it views as an affront to its great history and self-perceived role as a major international player. “We are a great nation with 5,000 years of history” Iran’s Ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, pointed out to me in 2010. This statement goes to the heart of what drives Iran and its foreign policy.

And this offers hope because in the end, what Iran wants is greater involvement. Sanctions are effective, but they are only half the battle and they are only ever a short-term measure. In the long-term, only real and sustained engagement will work because re-integrating Iran back into the international fold is the only real solution. Involving Iran in regional discussions on wider issues affecting the Middle East, and assisting it with securing membership of international organizations (like recent U.S. and Israeli support for its World Trade Organization membership) have also been suggested and must be pursued.

A world with a nuclear-armed Iran would be a far worse place than it is now. The question is what can be done to prevent this coming to pass. The upcoming Baghdad talks offer an opportunity for meaningful engagement with an Iran that may be more willing to compromise than it has been in a long time. Almost a decade ago, the EU3 had a similar opportunity; this time it must not be wasted.

David Patrikarakos is a U.K.-based writer and author of the upcoming book 'Nuclear Iran: The Birth of an Atomic State.' His work has appeared in the New Statesman and Financial Times, among other publications.

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The latest test was the bizarre and heroic episode last week of the “barefoot” blind lawyer and human rights protestor Chen Guangcheng finding his way out of extra-legal confinement and being spirited into the U.S. embassy in Beijing. Despite what must have been serious differences between China’s security forces and foreign policy officials over how to treat him and the Americans, Chen has so far been able to continue planning to take his family to the United States to study law in the next few weeks.

When the former police chief of Chongqing visited the U.S. consulate in Chengdu in February, he revealed innermost secrets of crimes and corruption by family and associates of a potential top leader, Bo Xilai, the party secretary of Chongqing. Reports are rife but unconfirmed that the chief of the security forces in China, Zhou Yongkang, has since suffered lost influence due to his relationship with Bo. Yet there’s an absence of signs that the security forces are seeking to retaliate by making a case that the United States needs to be taught a lesson about its diplomatic interference in China’s internal affairs.

Two weeks ago, in a letter to Congress intended to unblock the nomination of new Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs Mark Lippert, the White House promised to consider, but not necessarily sell, new military aircraft to Taiwan. This is a perennially neuralgic issue for Beijing, yet it seems so far to have brushed the letter off more as internal maneuvering over personnel than a real sign of an impending arms sale, which is an accurate assessment.

Quite impressively, China swallowed all these events and proceeded to host a comparatively productive and smooth Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) last week. Though most observers wouldn’t have noticed the conclave, given the excited reporting about Chen Guangcheng that dominated the news, it produced modest breakthroughs on financial services investment, the currency regime, and expanded high technology exports. The companion Strategic Security Dialogue between the two militaries also met smoothly and at greater length than previously. These outcomes are respectable in what is a sensitive political year in both countries.

Further, Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie traveled to the United States in the immediate aftermath of the media turmoil last week for the first visit at his level in nine years, a gap produced by successive spats that made the People’s Liberation Army reluctant to meet. At neither of these two recent military meetings did China raise the Taiwan arms letter, when its officers could easily have done so in the context of other discussion about continued U.S. sales to Taiwan.

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Although Dagan and Diskin haven’t elaborated on this point, it’s unlikely that they would have created such a fuss if they thought the chances of Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak following through with an attack on Iran was zero. Indeed, the very fact that they have been so vocal in their opposition to such a strike is a clear sign that the possibility of a unilateral Israeli attack against Iran can’t be completely ruled out.

This specter of military action looms despite warnings by former Israeli Defense Force intelligence chief Shlomo Gazit that such an attack could actually speed up Iran’s nuclear program, as well as damage relations with the United States. What seems to particularly concern Diskin is what has been described as Netanyahu and Barak’s “messianic belief.” This is a stinging criticism in Judaism of individuals who see themselves as the savior of Israel and its people.

If Diskin truly feels Netanyahu and Barak might base their decision to attack Iran on their belief that they are rescuing the Israeli people, rather than arriving at their decision based on cold, hard intelligence, then Israel’s citizens have much to worry about. Yet judging by the reaction of Diskin and the support that he received from Dagan, this could really be the case and would explain why they’ve decided to oppose the government’s Iran policies in such a vocal manner now, rather than waiting.

The latest public dispute comes at a time when the debate in Israel over how to handle Iran is becoming poisoned with personal attacks. When Dagan criticized the government’s Iran strategy, for example, he was accused of “sabotage against democratic institutions in Israel.” Similarly with Diskin, his view was dismissed as seeking revenge because he didn’t get the job as head of Mossad.

But Netanyahu’s statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day, that “those who dismiss Iran’s threats as exaggerated or as mere idle posturing have learned nothing from the Holocaust,” took the public debate on Iran to a new low. By framing his Iran arguments using the Holocaust, Netanyahu is effectively suggesting that opponents of his policy are willing to allow Jews to face genocide once again.

The use of the Holocaust is inappropriate and counterproductive in a democracy like Israel. The emotional scars of the tragedy shouldn’t be used as a way of assessing the future behavior of a Middle Eastern regime in 2012, one that’s faced with a quite different – and much more powerful – opponent than the individuals that Hitler’s regime picked off. Rather than looking back seven decades, the Netanyahu government should look at Iran as it stands in 2012 – a country that for all its faults isn’t as powerful nor genocidal as the Nazi-led regime of the 1930s and 1940s.

Indeed, rather than rallying the country, Netanyahu’s use of the Holocaust could spark a backlash. It should be noted, for example, that Diskin’s attack against the government’s Iran policies came nine days after Netanyahu’s remarks at the Holocaust memorial.

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The apparent agreement between Beijing and Washington to allow Chen to go to the United States as a visiting scholar in the very near future may have put an end to this heart-wrenching episode for now, but the fallout from this event, both for Chinese diplomacy and the ruling Communist Party’s ability to maintain control in an increasingly volatile political environment, will be significant and lasting.

On the diplomatic front, the relative flexibility demonstrated by Beijing in handling this crisis has definitely prevented an even more damaging outcome.  The all-important U.S.-China relationship was spared another body blow.

Yet, Beijing should find no cause for cheer. The damage done to the Chinese government’s image abroad is incalculable. For almost a week, the world was riveted by the unfolding drama of Chen’s escape. People all over the world cared about Chen’s wellbeing because he was a powerful symbol for courage and social justice. This couldn’t be good news for Chinese leaders, now seen as complicit in Chen’s mistreatment by thugs hired by local government officials. China may have invested tens of billions of dollars, including extravaganzas like the Beijing Olympics and the Shanghai Expo, to boost its international standing. All it takes to undo such “soft power” offensives is one lonely blind man who dared to show to the rest of the world the cruelty and repressiveness of the current Chinese political system.

For the party, the domestic political fallout is perhaps even more worrying. Chen’s escape revealed the incompetence of its repressive apparatus. If more than a hundred thugs couldn’t guard a blind man, one wonders whether this costly apparatus could do much else. Another disquieting development for the Chinese government during this episode was the failure of its censorship system in blocking out the news of Chen’s escape. Of course, the censors tried hard, but China’s Twitter equivalent, the micro blogs, made their job impossible, as during the Bo Xilai scandal.  There isn’t enough evidence to suggest whether such demonstration of incompetence has hurt the hardliners inside the party.  While it’s conceivable that they could use these two incidents to urge tougher repressive measures in the future, it’s hard to imagine that their political standing has increased as a result of the Chen story.

If anything, the Chen drama suggests that fear of repression is dissipating within China.  Chen escaped with the help of a network of friends and human rights activists, who risked their lives and liberty to spirit him away from danger and into the U.S. Embassy.  More remarkably, after the Chen story broke, many of the same activists fearlessly served as the conduit between Chen and the outside world, even though several of them were detained and beaten up by the police. For the Chinese Communist Party, this is perhaps the most worrisome development – long-repressed dissidents are less afraid to challenge the regime directly. To the extent that authoritarian regimes maintain power largely through fear, the loss of fear on the part of the opposition initially and the ordinary people afterwards is almost certain to portend a profound crisis.

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The government of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is balancing competing U.S., Israeli, and other Western concerns that, in the form of sanctions, can seriously harm the Indian economy. But Singh also wants to avoid harming India’s good relations with these countries at a time when Indians’ enormous energy needs and lack of alternative sources mean that they will need to continue to import some Iranian oil for years to come. Add to this the fact that India also wishes to remain on good terms with Tehran, and it’s clear why the U.S. and India don’t see eye to eye.

The differences risk coming to a head next month as India and the United States run up against an end of June deadline that will require the United States to impose sanctions on countries that haven’t significantly reduced their imports of Iranian oil. The Obama administration earlier announced that a dozen European countries had earned a waiver by reducing their Iranian oil imports. But only one Asian country, Japan, has so far qualified.

Many of the countries that haven’t complied share India’s objections that the supplementary sanctions are unfair and violate both their national sovereignty and pride. Members of the Indian parliament have strongly attacked the sanctions, and their influence shouldn’t be underestimated given how their refusal to accommodate foreign firms for liability exemptions has stalled international efforts to deepen nuclear energy cooperation with India.

Meanwhile, though, the Indian government has been quietly pushing its oil companies to reduce their crude imports from Iran. The government would like to receive a waiver before the sanctions take effect. One Indian official told the media that, “we believe we have a strong case” to receive the waiver. In addition, a senior U.S. official, travelling with Clinton, told reporters that, “Our assessment is India is making good progress, but we really need to receive assurances that they are going to continue to make good progress.”

India’s behavior highlights a major problem with the Iran sanctions regime. Many countries face a different set of calculations than the United States, Israel, and many European and Persian Gulf governments, which have adopted supplementary sanctions on Tehran that supplement those imposed by the U.N. Security Council. Whereas the latter group can identify a plausible military threat from an Iran that possesses nuclear warheads and long-range ballistic missiles, India, China, Russia, and many other non-Western countries consider an Iranian attack on themselves a remote possibility.

The Indian government has thus opposed these additional sanctions on Iran and favored continuing dialogue and negotiations with Tehran to resolve the dispute over the Iranian nuclear issue without further sanctions. They strongly oppose even the threat of military action since that raises the costs of their oil imports – an actual war could wreck the Indian economy if it deprived India of oil from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and other Middle Eastern countries as well as Iran.

From New Delhi’s perspective, an Iran with nuclear weapons would pale as a threat to India compared with China’s growing military power and even more so Pakistan, whose strategists try to terrorize India’s population behind Islamabad’s nuclear shield. Indians share with Americans and their allies fears of nuclear terrorism, but they see this danger as emanating from Pakistan’s militants rather than Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

The Israeli equation is also important for India. Ties between New Delhi and Tel Aviv have improved markedly since the end of the Cold War and the decline of India’s commitment to nonalignment. The two countries share unease about being surrounded by a bevy of Muslim nations sympathizing with their Islamic adversaries. Against this backdrop, Israel has become a major supplier of weapons, intelligence, and high technology to India.

For governments like India that don’t see Iran as a major problem, a key consideration is how much they value maintaining trade and other ties with Tehran versus what costs they might suffer if they antagonize U.S. policy makers, who are leading the drive for global sanctions against Iran. In particular, they could lose business in the United States if Washington sanctions their firms for engaging in commerce with Iran. Some of these countries, such as India, also calculate what level of interaction with Iran will risk excessive costs in their ties with Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other Iranian adversaries.

The reality for New Delhi is that Iran is an important supplier of oil to India, which gets 70 percent of its oil through imports. Although Iran has now fallen one slot to become India’s third largest oil supplier after Saudi Arabia and now Iraq, Iran still provides around 9 percent of India’s hydrocarbon requirements, which amount to more than 500,000 barrels a day.

Saudi Arabia has been offering to sell additional oil to India to help weaken New Delhi’s ties with Tehran, but Indian energy managers insist they have no choice but to continue to import Iranian oil. One way Tehran has countered Riyadh is by offering various discounts and other concessions to its oil clients. In the case of India, the National Iranian Oil Company agreed earlier this year that India could pay for 45 percent of oil imports from Iran in rupees instead of dollars, which is an easier to convert hard currency, but harder to use in transactions involving Iran. Trading in rupees or through barter can avoid relying on international banks that are subject to the Western sanctions.

Still, in their boardrooms, the biggest factor leading some of India’s largest companies to forego commercial opportunities in Iran is the fear that these ties will endanger their business reputations, engage them in projects that will prove unprofitable due to constrained access to Western technology and financing, and entangle their foreign operations in the extensive network of secondary sanctions that the United States has constructed to entrap all entities that have any ties with Iran’s illicit nuclear activities.

However, some Indian business managers are eager to exploit Iran’s isolation from international markets, which the sanctions will deepen, for their own profit. This is particularly true of small businesses that don’t have commercial ties with the United States, Europe, or Western companies. But even some larger Indian firms seem to hope that they can conceal their business ties with Iran and slip below the U.S. Treasury’s radar.

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Although the leadership in both Tehran and Washington has cooled confrontational rhetoric and both appear to desire an agreement, in both countries politics at home is likely to prevent either side from making the concessions needed to unblock the talks, according to several analysts in Washington.

“My guess is that they will slow-walk this,” says David Mack, an experienced Middle East hand who served as former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Near East Affairs, in an interview with The Diplomat. “Neither the Iranian side nor the American side want to come to a deal real soon. I don't think a deal would be real good for domestic politics for either one.”

Over the last several weeks, officials on both sides have edged closer to public recognition of what it will take to reach an agreement: acceptance of Iran’s right, under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, to enrich uranium on its own soil to 5 percent purity, or fuel grade, in exchange for a halt by Iran of its current enrichment to 20 percent, ostensibly for its medical research reactor, the export of existing 20 percent stockpiles for reprocessing, and a rigorous regime of inspections as mandated by the NPT’s Additional Protocol, aimed at ensuring that Iran does not produce uranium enriched to 90 percent, or weapons grade.

For months, the United States has quietly been letting it be known that accepting enrichment by Iran might be in the cards. In an April 17 interview, Gary Samore, Obama’s chief adviser on arms control, said: “We recognize that Iran has the right to a peaceful nuclear energy program once it has addressed concerns about its nuclear activities. What we haven't done is specify exactly what the elements of that nuclear energy program would be. And that is a matter for negotiation.” Then, speaking anonymously, a senior U.S. official told the Los Angeles Times that the United States is willing to put uranium enrichment on the table and that “maybe we can get there, potentially.” The official made it clear that there’s a consensus developing within the Obama administration that calls for Iran to halt or suspend all enrichment are a nonstarter.

Meanwhile, various Iranian officials, including some notably close to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, have expressed optimism about the current round of talks. Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi – who, according to Washington scuttlebutt, could be Khamenei’s choice to succeed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president in 2013 – called the current talks “a turning point in the Iran-West dialogue” and suggested that Tehran might be willing to revise its nuclear policy. As reported by Al-Monitor, other senior Iranians close to Khamenei expressed similarly positive sentiments, including Ali Akbar Velayati, adviser to Khamenei and member of a powerful political clan, and Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the leader of the all-powerful Guardian Council, which appoints the supreme leader and controls access to Iranian politics. Jannati called the recent talks a “good achievement” and noted, with some exaggeration, that the West now “accepted that uranium enrichment is Iran’s right.”

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The demonstrators, part of the latest Bersih (clean) rally, were driven back from Independence Square after they pushed through barricades sealing off the plaza. Almost 400 demonstrators were subsequently arrested by police, including some seen being dragged away holding bloodied faces and bruised limbs.

Moments after Malaysian  opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim addressed the crowd at the frontline, several protestors at the barricades suddenly shouted “back, back,” before pushing through the police lines around the Dataran Merdeka, or Independence Square, the iconic downtown location where the protestors sought to hold their sit down demonstration seeking changes to how Malaysia holds elections.

Bersih is a grouping of NGOs and activists who say that Malaysia's election system is skewed in favor of the current government, a coalition that has governed Malaysia since independence from Britain in 1957. Recent electoral reforms proposed by the government don’t go far enough, say the protest leaders, who have been criticized in some quarters locally for being too close to Malaysia’s parliamentary opposition. Bersih says that anyone is free to support their electoral reform cause, including the current government.

Bersih said Friday that they expected 100,000 people to take to Kuala Lumpur’s streets, and though the eventual turnout was unclear, estimates have ranged anywhere from 30,000 to 250,000 as protestors lived up to their pledge to march from several locations in the city to Independence Square, where the organizers hoped for “goodwill from the government.” The protestors said that they had the right to gather at the square, but the government ruled otherwise, saying it offered the organizers four alternative venues, a move that Bersih in turn said came too late to be logistically feasible.

Bersih leader Ambiga Sreenevasan told media after the rally that a crowd of 250,000 was on the streets, concluding that “in that sense it (the rally) was a success.” But under a searing southeast Asian sun glinting off the high-rise skyline backdrop, Malaysia’s biggest city once more turned into a battleground, repeating the events of the July 9, 2011, Bersih rally, when the electoral reform group and its supporters last took to the streets.

This time around, though, the blame game could go both ways, with some protestors seen pushing through barricades, followed by police firing water cannon laced with chemicals and tear gas, sending the crowd running back toward a nearby mosque and train station.

In a statement released early Saturday evening, Malaysian Home Affairs Minister Hishamuddin Hussein praised police and put the blame squarely on protestors. “A group of protesters tried to provoke a violent confrontation with the police,” he said.

“I’m not surprised they released the gas,” said Bert Chen, one of the thousands of protestors, speaking after leaving the protest area. Raising his right arm to show a grazed elbow, he said: “I fell, and lost my shoes…There was so much confusion, and people were running in several directions.”

Nodding toward the coils of razor wire running along the edge of the Independence Square, protestor Norariani Harris said “people have the right to sit there peacefully,” referring to the square. “But this wire is like something inhuman.”

Last July, more than 1,600 people were arrested, including opposition leaders. That crackdown prompted a decline in the government's popularity, though Prime Minister Najib Razak recently recovered some lost ground in opinion polls, partly on the back of cash handouts to households taking home less than RM3,000 a month.

Last year’s loss of face also seemingly prompted a reform drive starting in September 2011, with changes proposed to Malaysia's print media regime, to draconian-sounding laws allowing detention without trial, and through new laws allowing peaceful protests.

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2. Thailand, Cambodia Spat Gets Ugly
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Events have moved quickly since President Thein Sein, a former army general and prime minister in the previous military regime, moved quickly to show his bona fides after taking office last April in the aftermath of tightly controlled elections:

– Thein Sein’s direct dialogue with Suu Kyi drew her into political participation under the Constitution she had earlier rejected.

– Truces were negotiated with many of the 11 armed ethnic insurgent groups, culminating in this month’s visit to Yangon by leaders of the Karen National Union.

– The controversial Myitsone hydro- electric scheme being built by a Chinese- led consortium on the upper Irrawaddy was suspended.

– Large groups of political prisoners have been released, including leaders of the 1988 student uprising.

– A plan to open up the economy has seen the first major step with adoption of a market-based exchange rate.

– The April 1 by-elections have been judged free and fair, the wins by Suu Kyi and nearly all of the other National League for Democracy candidates ratified.

The simple paradigm of a revered democracy advocate holding out in her enforced isolation against a brutal, reform-resistant military now needs to be abandoned. The outside world must engage with a more complex political situation, judiciously supporting reformers and good policy in both government and opposition.

Only three days after the by-elections, the United States announced a substantial easing of its political and economic sanctions. It will send a new ambassador, expected to be President Barack Obama’s special Burma envoy Derek Mitchell, to fill a post left vacant in protest since the former military regime annulled the 1990 election won by the NLD.

The United States’ $35 million aid program will be formalized and extended through a new office in the embassy and Washington will be more ready to approve World Bank and United Nations development projects. Government leaders and officials seen as positive reformers will be allowed to travel to the United States, and even invited.

The biggest impact will come from the lifting of barriers in the U.S. financial system to clearance of transactions involving parties in Burma. These have not only blocked payments routed through American institutions or in U.S. dollars, but inhibited third-country banks through fear of attracting U.S. Treasury penalty.

As a result, visitors will be able to use their credit cards to pay for hotels, domestic air travel and other expenses inside Burma, avoiding the present need for large amounts of hard cash. Exports of commodities priced in U.S. dollars will no longer need indirect payment through a third-country currency, which shaves up to 4 percent off earnings.

The Americans are also selectively lifting their ban on investments in Burma. Tourism, agriculture, banking and telecommunications are favored sectors, unlike extractive industries such as ruby mining and timber, which are beset with illegality and located in areas of ethnic conflict zones.

Related posts:

1. Can Burma Keep Pace With Itself?
2. ASEAN Stands Up to Burma?
3. Will Reform Bring Burma Peace?