A post about something

The last couple posts were largely written from the perspective of me trying to put forth what I thought Clinton's summit meant now and what it could mean in the future. But, for today's post -- and I'm trying very hard to refrain from posting for the sake of posting, I'm going to have to criticize probably the worst editorial I've come across in a long time and try to undo the disservice to the American public that the New York Times has just done. It's definitely worse than the fairly recent editorial from the Los Angeles Times on which I had so much to say. This is just an excerpt:

To start, that means not giving in to Pyongyang’s desire to make the talks a bilateral process with Washington. It is imperative to keep South Korea, Japan, China and Russia — key participants in any effective deal — engaged. Officials from Washington and Pyongyang can still meet separately, as they did under Mr. Bush.

Most important, the United States and its partners need to make clear that the expectations are higher than they were before — that North Korea will not be rewarded again just for recommitting to promises that were broken before and likely will be broken again. Future steps toward disarmament must be irreversible.

Under a 2005 agreement, North Korea shut down its reactor at Yongbyon — the source of plutonium for its nuclear weapons — and promised to dismantle its bomb-making infrastructure. It has since kicked out international inspectors and claims to be rebuilding and resuming its capabilities. One way to make disablement more permanent: pour concrete into the reactor core ("Next Steps With North Korea" : New York Times).

I thought George W. Bush's Administration was out of touch with reality when during the entire time North Korea systematically went from first withdrawing from the NPT and then kicking out inspectors at Yongbyon to eventually detonating a nuclear device, the only thing the Bush Administration actually did was mutter ridiculously delusional demands, such as "CVID" (Complete, Verifiable, Irreversible, Disarmament).

But, this article. This article reminds me of those translated to English, Neoconfucian classics on what it takes to be a good leader or a good king or like a saying from Sun Tzu's Art of War. It throws basically everything a wise and virtuous leader should do (basically mention anything and everything that could be written down without expressing a coherent opinion and, of course, all the while conveniently not mentioning any explicit course of action a good and virtuous leader should actually do). It might make for great philosophy -- if you're into that kind of thing, but it sure shouldn't be wasting space on a major U.S. daily.

What got me in particular was how the author doesn't take a position on the six-party talks. North Korea feels betrayed (China is a permanent member on the U.N.S.C. and they recently passed sanctions against North Korea). So, of course, North Korea doesn't want to go to Beijing for Six-Party Talks. And, the U.S. has rejected bilateral talks with North Korea. And, President Obama is saying nothing has changed:

In words that may well serve to reassure U.S. allies Japan and South Korea, Gibbs said U.S. policy had not changed as a result of Clinton's visit ("White House says policy toward North Korea unchanged" : Reuters India).

So, I would think that this article would have a new suggestion linking back to something from Clintons' trip that has somehow allowed for some new type of dialogue (which it doesn't do) or argue for something that's been proposed in the past (which it also doesn't do).

In an editorial one would expect a stance toward a particular issue and would take the time to outline it. For example, I think it's about time to let the six party talks die, perhaps in favor of four-party talks (and not necessarily in Beijing either). There are just too many countries representing too many interests, which makes the entire process too cumbersome. It also rewards Beijing for doing absolutely nothing, while giving the U.S. the false impression and hope that Beijing actually has the influence to reign in North Korea from developing nukes, when the country clearly doesn't.

Moreover, what does the author mean when writing that the United States must keep her allies "engaged" even as the United States and North Korea can meet without the presence of her allies. I mean what type of "engagement" are we talking about.

President Obama's "engagement" -- which is more like George W. Bush Administration's CVID talk were it ever to have been implemented into policy one day? Or, how Japan was being engaged when the U.S. notified her closest ally in Asia some twenty minutes before taking North Korea off its list of states sponsoring terrorism? (Recall that North Korea kidnapped Japanese citizens from Japanese soil -- imagine the outcry if that happened in California -- which is similar to the warcry that gave us California -- and, of course, North Korea actually harbored Japanese communist terrorist/rebels; This is similar to the Bush Administration's accusations against Tehran early on in this decade if these accusations actually turned out to be true). By the way, I really am a Republican (in a more traditional sense, if you get what I mean).

But anyways, back to this work of profound thought. The author writes, "Future steps toward disarmament must be irreversible." Umm. There's more to this sentence than just stating the obvious and moving towards the asinine. "One way to make disablement more permanent: pour concrete into the reactor core."

Anyways, the reason I bring this up is that this article for all it's gibberish gives off the illusion that people still believe that North Korea will give up it's nuclear weapons in exchange for aid one day. And, this is exactly what this trashy editorial (can't believe it was actually published in the New York Times) presumes: North Korea will give up its nukes. And, one thing that the past sixteen years has shown...Why else would the Obama Administration be "engaging" North Korea in a way that has changed the definition of the word "engagement" (something this reporter just doesn't seem to get).

Sixteen years of North Korean intransigence has now shown both those that had been previously in favor of "engagement" (Sunshine Policy people, what the word used to mean when previously used in context of North Korea) with North Korea and those that didn't are now all basically in agreement -- North Korea will not give up it's nuclear weapons (But let's say for the sake of this article, that it's possible. North Korea will willingly give up its nukes -- as the country borders China, South Korea, and Russia). This time though, let's make it permanent: "One way to make disablement more permanent: pour concrete into the reactor core."

As I wrote in the previous post, I believe relations with North Korea will boil down to how nations come to tacitly accept North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

What to expect from Clinton's "Summit"

And, Kim Jong Il Gets What He Wants... (Which is ? Scroll to the way bottom)

While former President Clinton goes to North Korea (as an unoffical guest, which is quite convenient for the U.S.), Kim Jong Il finally gets his one-on-one encounter with a (former, Democratic) U.S. president -- before he dies. It made all the headlines here in the U.K. as well, however I couldn't find an equivalent of the one they had at over at the Economist. I nabbed the picture below from "North Korea: Pictures from an exhibition" : The Economist.

At any rate, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il finally got the attention he so craved. While reading one of the U.K. dailies today, I came across this one part, which I thought was quite funny. These are insults that have been traded between the U.S. and the North Korean regime at one point or another:

Kim Jong-il may have been all smiles and handshakes with Bill, but just a few days ago his regime was in something of a slanging match with the other Clinton.

On a recent visit to New Delhi, Hillary, the Secretary of State, bemoaned the North Korean leadership's "constant demand for attention," before adding: "Maybe it's the mother in me or the experience that I've had with small children and unruly teenagers."

The North Koreans' response was firm. "We cannot but regard Mrs Clinton as a funny lady as she likes to utter such rhetoric, unaware of the elementary etiquette in the international community," a spokesperson said. "Sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes like a pensioner going shopping."

The name-calling between Washington and Pyongyang is not new. George W Bush branded Kim Jong-il "a spoiled child at a dinner table". The North Koreans called Bush a "tyrannical imbecile" lacking "even an iota of elementary reason". And in 1968, North Korea's Major-General Pak Chung Kuk called Lyndon Johnson a "living corpse" ("Two U.S. journalists freed from Korean gulag" : The Independent).

At any rate, there was a lot of press coverage, but with expectations suddenly raised between North Korea and the U.S., although I feel I am a quite an optimist by nature, I cannot be more than a tad pessimistic about what may lay ahead. This "summit" has all the elements that the Koizumi-Kim summit had in 2002 when Koizumi suddenly and unexpectedly arrived in North Korea for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il for the release of Japanese abductees. Of course, none at the time and nobody more so than former Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi could have anticipated how adversely the Japanese public would consume the news that their citizens had indeed been abducted.

Personally, I believe what will drive North Korea-U.S. relations as well as with the other four parties from the six party framework, is how each party comes to accept the fact that North Korea will never give up its nuclear weapons. This stands in stark and direct conflict with the fact that the United States will never accept North Korea as a legitimate nuclear power along the lines that the U.S. has with India -- and rightly so.

But, I do believe the U.S. would be content to see a steady-state where North Korea has nuclear weapons, but doesn't share/sell nuclear weapons or technology to other countries or non-state actors. Of course, this would hinge on North Korea not testing nuclear weapons (you can see this as the U.S. -- I'm thinking Department of Defense here, which has a different definition as to what constitutes a nuclear test than the U.S. State Department). And, of course, this action by the U.S. would in and of itself be a security guarantee for North Korea -- while not directly in the form of an alliance, the U.S. will do everything in its power to make sure a state with nuclear weapons does not collapse (think Pakistan).

But, pessimissm aside, I have a feeling that come one year -- and provided Kim Jong Il doesn't die, not much will have changed from how things were perhaps a couple years ago. If North Korea returns to a posture where it looks like it is going to negotiate, then South Korea can again start trading with North Korea and, well, unfortunately Japan looks like the odd man out (I'm quite concerned about what would happen if Japan's interests were not considered by the U.S., leading to Japan re-arming. Japan has quite a few greivances with all her neighbors: Kuril Islands/lack of peace treaty (Russia), Liancourt Rocks (Korea), No Peace Treaty (North Korea), and the Senkaku Islands (China/Republic of China(Taiwan)). I'm probably missing some others as well.

Anyways, I'm thinking that at best we can expect a return to the status quo and see what type of vocabulary each country uses to come up with a tacit acceptance of North Korea's nuclear weapons program as no country will go to war with North Korea to get rid of it.

(So, Kim Jong Il gets a de-facto security guarantee from the United States with the potential for much more).

Why President Clinton's Trip is Not Appeasement

About a decade late, but former President Bill Clinton is finally heading to North Korea. Not to secure the country's nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles programs, but to noblely win the release of two captured American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee -- as if the outcome was uncertain with another former president heading over there:

The Obama administration is rewarding North Korea for its bad behavior by sending ex-president Bill Clinton to Pyongyang to win the release of two US journalists, the former US ambassador to the UN said Tuesday.

John Bolton, an outspoken hardliner in the previous administration of George W. Bush, told AFP that Clinton's mission to Pyongyang undermines a number of public stands held by his own wife, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"It comes perilously close to negotiating with terrorists," Bolton told AFP when asked about Bill Clinton's trip to secure the release of journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee ("Bill Clinton rewarding NKorea for bad behavior: Bolton" : Agence France-Presse)

While in principle I've always been a supporter of John Bolton even when he fell out with the George W. Bush administration when the administration did its sudden U-turn on its North Korean policy, I wouldn't believe it to be as bad as Bolton makes it out to be (yes, from one angle, it's a form of appeasement, but to rigidly be against a policy just because of it's name is a strike against common sense and an exercise in sheer stupidity) and considering how things currently are I think its realistically the most the U.S. can ask for.

Yes, while sending another former U.S. (Democratic) President to North Korea definitely looks bad as the U.S. seems to continually be rewarding North Korea for bad behavior -- bad behavior in the sense that North Korean behavior has led to sanctions on at least two different occasions by the United Nations Security Council, after mostly being championed by the U.S. And, sending a former President after the country allegedly explodes a couple nuclear devices definitely sends the wrong signal if the U.S. is against accepting North Korea as a nuclear state.

But realistically, and and I think this is where George W. Bush's North Korea policy was such a failure in its first administration, considering what the U.S. can actually do with respect to North Korea this is the best the U.S. can ask for. I mean with President Obama currently occupied with his domestic agenda and perhaps even the fate of his Presidency as the latest issue of the Economist points out:

"IF THE opinion polls are to be believed, Barack Obama is now, six months into his presidency, no more popular than George Bush or Richard Nixon were at the same stage in theirs" ("Crunch time" : The Economist)

Moreover, as the current U.S. President's attention is largely preoccupied by domestic concerns, such as healthcare, and as the six-party talks have died, there is no longer a readily agreeable forum for which North Korea and the U.S. can talk. So, I think sending former President Bill Clinton, who unlike former President Carter in 1994 was not married to then serving U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, will hopefully facilitate progress to be made on the more pressing issues of denuclearization, a peace treaty to a war that's lasted for more than half a century, and the division of a country. By this, I mean that these talks may lead to the creation of goodwill between the two sides and create new channels of communication (On a side note, I wonder if kidnapped Japanese or South Korean nationals will at all be mentioned as the two captured American journalists regain their freedom. My guess is not).

Perhaps, in this case, appeasement is the right way to go.

Though, if you look at U.S. actions in its entirety, appeasement would not be the right word to use. Recall, how the U.S. conducted it's own successful ballistic missile weapons test and, more recently, the successful missile defense test of weapons for all intent and purposes were supposed to simulate the missiles North Korea fired on the 4th of July:

"An Aegis-class U.S. naval ship then fired an interceptor missile, which struck the target about 160 km above the earth. The process -- from launch to shoot-down -- took less than five minutes" ("U.S. declares success in missile defense test" : Xinhua).