The Axis of Order?

Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times:

Last September, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick gave a speech to the National Committee on United States-China Relations in which he repeatedly urged China to become a responsible "stakeholder" in the international system. It turns out that there is no word in Chinese for "stakeholder," and the initial Chinese reaction was puzzlement and reaching for a dictionary. Did Mr. Zoellick mean "steak holder?" After all, he was speaking at a dinner. Maybe this was some Texas slang for telling China it had to buy more U.S. beef? Well, eventually the Chinese got a correct interpretation.

At the time, I thought Mr. Zoellick was raising an important point, but I now believe it is an urgent point. Why? Because Iran is determined to build a nuclear bomb, and the only nations with the clout to stop it - by diplomatic means - are China, Russia and India. Let's hope they act, because if Iran goes nuclear, the international order that has evolved since the cold war ended could unravel. READ MORE

Iran decided this week to defy the U.S., Europe and the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency - by removing the I.A.E.A. seals at three Iranian nuclear sites - so Tehran can resume uranium enrichment, a key step in making a bomb.

The I.A.E.A. seals were put in place two and a half years ago, after the U.N. agency found that Iran was in breach of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Iran could have been referred to the Security Council then for sanctions. But instead, in return for keeping the seals on Iran's facilities, the Europeans tried to negotiate an end to the crisis.

Why has this now become a stakeholder test for China, Russia and India? Because if the Iranian mullahs - who are now awash in petro- dollars - know one thing, it is how to read power and weakness. The Iranians know that the U.S. has already put all the sanctions on Iran that it can. They seriously doubt that the Europeans will ever impose sanctions. And - this is the key - even if the Security Council censures Iran, and Europe miraculously joins the U.S. in imposing sanctions, the Iranians assume that China, Russia and India (that's half the world) will never follow.

Iran will back down only if China, Russia and India make it clear that they are not only willing to let Iran's case be taken up by the Security Council - a step sought by the U.S. and Europe - but that they will also join in stringent economic sanctions. Western threats, which Iran's radical president dismissed with the back of his hand yesterday as some little "fuss," are no longer credible.

Communist Russia and China opposed the U.S. during the cold war, and socialist India was neutral. But since the end of the cold war, all three countries have embraced capitalism and become huge players - and beneficiaries - in today's global economy, with Russia providing oil and gas, China manufacturing and India software. All three now have a huge stake in the stability of the international system.

But these countries have basically been cruising along as free riders on a stable international order, which has been maintained largely by the U.S., with help from the E.U., NATO and Japan. Both Russia and China have actually used their clout at times to protect international bad actors - like Iran, Sudan and North Korea - out of a narrow economic self-interest and a kind of residual third-world, gotta-counter-the-Americans reflex.

But if Iran defies the U.N. and goes nuclear, it will give an already nasty regime a shield behind which to make even more trouble - from Iraq to Israel and Europe. It would also be likely to lead to the end of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, to a possible military strike against Iran by Israel or America - which would surely disrupt the Persian Gulf oil supplies that India and China depend upon - and to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. The Sunni Arabs may tolerate the Jews' having a bomb, but not the Shiite Persians' having one. The Arabs would want their own bomb. And Russia would have an unstable, nuclear-armed Iran on its border.

In fairness, India, China and Russia have taken small steps to defuse the crisis and signal Iran that they don't approve of its actions and may let it be hauled before the Security Council.

That helped keep Iran on the fence - for a while. But now Iran has gotten off the fence, and so must Russia, China and India. For their own sakes, if not ours, these emerging big three have got to become the Axis of Order. The old cops on the beat can't deal with the Axis of Evil alone anymore. Pay attention to how this one ends, folks. The structure of the whole post-cold-war world is at stake.