Senators Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin join the North Korea punditry, urging the Bush administration to cut a deal before it’s too late:
Thus, while the administration wrangled internally about whether to negotiate seriously with North Korea, Pyongyang was using the time to break out as a nuclear power. Indeed, in February the North Koreans declared that they have a “nuclear weapons arsenal.”
This is something we should be in a hurry to reverse. Why is it that a war to address a nuclear weapons program that we now know had been dismantled can be pursued with great urgency by this administration while diplomacy to eliminate a growing arsenal in North Korea is carried on in an almost lackadaisical fashion, captive to pride and preconditions?
Whatever. Read the rest on your own.
14 Comments
It’s just an easy target. It’s great to pick out a problem that has no real solution and take a high horse saying, “Why haven’t you solved this?” without providing a road map yourself that will do it.
And the Iraq or even Iran pointing is also an easy mark as long as you’re dealing with people who don’t pause two seconds to think.
North Korea has nuclear weapons already and a lot of other WMD including, more than likely, small pox. But, more importantly (except perhaps for the nukes) where does North Korea sit? Right above South Korea’s 11th largest industrial economy and huge population, right across the water from the mega economy of Japan and its millions of people and right below China — the rising mammoth and beyond massive population.
Where does Iraq sit?
Again, the moment Clinton or anybody can lay out for me a detailed plan that convinces me it is either going to take North Korea out with an acceptable amount of losses, or a convincing road map where I can see North Korea will open itself up to the kinds of continual inspections and other measures that will give us some assurance the nuclear threat is gone, I’ll —- well, I’ll drop dead from a heart attack, because it ain’t going to happen.
I don’t knock the male Clinton too much for the 1994 agreement, but what did we learn from it?
It was a deal to give the appearance of doing something. What it did accomplish was slow North Korea down in making nukes. It also left them with the assurance of material in storage that it could unpack at anytime and speed up nuke production. And given the secretive nature and the fact that the 1994 agreement didn’t ask NK to open up its society or government, it did get away with a slower nuke program until it was noticed years later.
And, the deal left NK with any nukes we thought it might already have back then.
That is the only kind of deal that is going to be made. I think this is just a realistic conclusion. The North will not go through with the measures the US (and others) will need to assure the nuclear threat is gone. They will not do it because they believe it will be the end of the regime. And there is no way we are going to get around that fact. No matter how much money and material aid and peace proposals we give them, they are not going to open the nation up enough to satisfy any real peace or non-nuke deal.
So, do we seek to hem them in as best we can?
Or, do we cut a deal we know doesn’t work to make ourselves feel better?
I do believe the areas we have room to achieve some movement are in South Korea and China. But, we don’t seem willing to twist their arms and make it worth it to them to cut back on what they give North Korea. If I were thinking about carrots and sticks to solve the North Korea nuclear problem, I’d have my team thinking up ways to squeeze and/or pay off SK and China for measures that cut into North Korea — especially illegal drug trafficing, money laundering, missile and other military tech and equipment, and many other things to irritate and weaken North Korea.
While I don’t agree with all Bush does, esp. in regard to NK, give me a break Levin-Clinton. My reply is here (July 5).
I couldn?€™t disagree more with the both of you gents on this matter. Sen Clinton is asking (unfortunately belatedly) the same questions I have been asking since talk of regime replacement in Iraq started to happen. I was in Korea in ?€™94 and distinctly remember being issued US evacuation plans and told to memorize them and to carry my passport with me at all times because it came that close. Clinton is not to blame for the failure of the ?€™94 accord, neither party performed only marginally on it and in the end, I think the case can be made that this perceived feet dragging on the part of Japan, SKorea and the US helped push NKorea to the point it is at now. Libya has taken steps to ensure that it can be a productive part of world affairs and it was W that released assets that had been previously frozen. For that matter, it was W that has embraced Pakistan as a great friend of the US, the same Pakistan that went ahead and tested their nuclear weapon despite the US?€™s strongest requests not to. The same is true of India. Venezuela is currently experiencing negative double digit GDP growth, if they are denied sales of their oil, their economy would collapse inside a year. As far as geographic location, Iraq does not have anywhere near the same population density that exists here in NE Asia but it does have significant oil reserves making it just as, if not more important that the size of the Korean, Japanese and Chinese economies given the relatively record highs for oil we are currently seeing and the imminent impact that will have on the global economy. Up until now, most economists have held that the price of oil must be kept at 30-35$/barrel for sustained real economic growth. Iran and NKorea are real issues and the fact is that W?€™s strategy (if it can indeed be called that) has been to leave them alone with the hope they will collapse on their own. It is precisely the failure of his administration to do anything that is the issue, much, much less the lack of credibility of the NKoreans. The issue is not so much that the current administration has not solved the problem but that they have not tried. The same is true with Iraq-people do not argue that Saddam should not have been removed, they DO argue that the war was hastily planned with not enough resources allocated and that it was sold to (or forced on depending on your point of view) the American public under false pretenses to fit a predetermined agenda.
Foreign policy is not a popularity contest but popularity can be seen as a gauge in judging it effectiveness. I think that Americans have been somewhat popular or at least there is an aura of interest that most groups of people have about Americans. Western Europe in particular has been a long time friend of America-lets not forget the statue of liberty was made in France and sent to the US as a gift-not something that is done with unpopular nations.
It may be true that the deal that Clinton put together in ?€™94 is at least partially to blame for putting us in the predicament we are in now but, that argument cannot be made with out remembering the fact that the US and other parties to that agreement did not perform according to the agreement leaving NK to take things to the next level. I am not saying that they have always had the intention of blackmailing the world with Nukes, maybe they have and maybe not-we will never know because the US and other did not fulfill their end of the bargain. I am saying that it is entirely reasonable to partially blame the current situation on our inability to hold up our end of the bargain. It was the Clinton administration that bartered the agreement but the republican controlled congress, among others, that held up participation. Remember, NK has no court to take the US, Japan and SK to for breach of contract-their course of action is a foregone conclusion. All of this pales in insignificance to the war in Iraq though. That too, was caused by the failure of big bush to deal with things the right way the first time. Not only that but then there is the question that is belatedly being asked-where are the WMD? I find it difficult to believe that the US intelligence community would be so incorrectly sure of its self about the production of WMD in Iraq to the extent the President would come out and proclaim to the world that that was the case-it was just an excuse to pick a fight. That was the pretense for invading Iraq-UN approved or not. I agree that the same UN sanctions against NK will not work for a number of different reasons. Nevertheless, it is a plan and that is more than the current administration has.
One more thing; I don?€™t think it is necessarily fair to make the unsubstantiated claim that Hillary was the real man in the White House and that she had any influence on Bills decisions. That would be like saying Laura Bush pushed W into invading Iraq or insinuating that W?€™s daughters have had something to do with the adoption of pro-medical marijuana laws in a number of states.
“The issue is not so much that the current [Bush] administration has not solved the problem [of NorK and Iranian] nukes, but that they have not tried.”
What exactly do you think Bush should have tried? Presumably forcing the Republican Congress into financially supporting an extension of the previous Clinton policies of food and oil subsidies and “light water” nuclear power plants? If so, then say so.
You must mean this, since surely you don’t mean that the invasion of Iraq should have been cancelled and the North attacked and invaded instead.
I always enjoy it when critics of the Bush administration decry the invasion of Iraq, while pointing out that real WMD’s exist in the DPRK and that the Bush admin “should have done something” about them instead. Such critics are always careful never to say exactly what this “something” should have been, which makes the sheer “chutzpah” of this argument most enjoyable. (”chutzpah” — another good word to teach your Korean students of English).
In a Machiavellian way, it now occurs to me that indeed it’s too bad that Bush didn’t open his administration with a triumphal Presidential trip to North Korea (like the one Clinton yearned to make at the end of his administration, as a follow-up to the Albright visit).
Bush could have hoisted glasses with KJI, signed some high-sounding but shortly-to-be-violated agreement (Oslo accords, Dayton treaty), then he could have come home to a proclamation of “peace in our time” and announced the consequent immediate withdrawl of all US forces from the ROK!
Whatever it takes to get us out. Of course, Prez Clinton, our “bridge to the 21st Century”, decided in the last year of his administration that such a visit really wasn’t such a good idea after all (even though the speculation was that Clinton hoped for such a trip and resultant agreements, in order to secure himself a Nobel peace prize).
Now “it’s all Bush all the time”, but nobody ever points out that Clinton had plenty of time in the last two years of his administration to have gone to DPRK (following the 98 Albright visit) and give such an agreement his personal, magical endorsement. Yet Bush is now automatically supposed to do what Clinton didn’t dare to do (and what nobody in either political party expected Clinton to do back then).
I find what I read here of ROK dislike of Bush to be supremely ironic. ROK is lucky to have Bush in office; if I were running things, I’d be negotiating unilaterally with the North just as everyone secretly yearns for.
Except I’d sign a peace treaty and then the US troops would immediately start loading up for movement to the ports of embarkation. We’ve been there long enough, it’s time for an “exit strategy” (how come none of you guys ever uses that phrase about the US presence in ROK?)
Having a viable solution to the situation with NK is not a prerequisite to being critical of the bush administration or its handling of the Iraq war vis-??-vis the lack of action dealing with the NK nuke issue. The situation is all the more ironic in that the given reason for going to war in Iraq was that they had WMD.
Let me liken this to bush being a mechanic having to fix a car. Instead of doing anything about the leaky oil pan gasket that leaves basketball sized puddles under the car, he insists on changing a tire because he claims it is probably leaking air. As it turns out, the tire was not leaking air but did need to be changed because it was unbalanced and had developed some flat spots. In the meantime, the engine has lost a lot of oil and is quickly approaching a critical point. He can temporarily solve the problem by adding oil that he knows will leak out or he can track down the leak and fix it then add the oil. There are other options available too but they may be a bit more drastic.
ANY suggested solution is going to be ridiculed by a segment of the population because of the distrust of NK. The US could pinch SK, China, Russia and Japan out of the picture and make their own agreement with NK and then as you advocate, leave SK. Another option might be to make the agreement with the understanding that any violation of the accord would be answered with invasion. Another one might be to do what Sen Clinton advocates (effective or not, she has a plan). Still another one might be to buy KJI out-I suspect that would be done for less money than has been spent on Iraq and offer him his own island in the Pacific or something, amnesty in Switzerland. I have just suggested a few options-none of them are the obvious best thing to do. Doing nothing (as is currently happening) is pushing NK to sell what they have and to act out. I agree that there is not the same pressing reason to keep US troops here on the Peninsula. I do think there are benefits to having them here but I am not 100% convinced that they out weigh the costs of having them here.
“It is precisely the failure of his administration to do anything that is the issue, much, much less the lack of credibility of the NKoreans.”
This statement proves to me that debating this topic with you is a waste of time. Regardless of whether we drag Bush v. Clinton (Mr.) or Republican v. World or US-Iraq v. US-NK — if I take this statement by itself, there is no hope. It is one of the most singularly incorrect statements I could think to run across.
I’ll get into the other side and largely unimportant issues, but I want to say first, there is no reason to discuss much about the past at all. Lay out a plan of actions that NK must take at minimum to give assurance it becomes non-nuclear — no nukes and enough access to it that we can feel safe they are not hiding other programs inside mountains or underground, or right under our noses. You can think big here. If you need massive amounts of aid, a full fledge peace deal, USFK withdrawal, abandoning of the DMZ on both sides, or anything much less drastic, feel free. I just want a plan that makes me think it would give reasonable assurance the North isn’t nuclear.
Next, lay out for me why I should believe North Korea will go through with those measures — and assume here that the US and others would fullfill their obligations to the T.
You wrote that you don’t need to have a plan ready to criticise Bush’s “lack of a plan,” and that is fine, but you’er not Derrida. If you’re a blogger, it’s all fine, but if you are a public pundit or a politician seeking to influence public opinion, then you are just taking cheap shots.
And the United States is not simply doing nothing. It is refusing to pay North Korea to return simply to return to the negociating table, especially considering there are very convicing reasons to believe the North will NEVER put in place the kinds of measures they US and Japan (and should be others) would need to have done to make sure North Korea is non-nuclear. Until I see a plan that makes sense, that can satisfy both nation’s strong desires, the US going to the table and cutting a deal would be nothing more than accepting North Korea as a nuclear state, but trying to limit the amount of nukes it produces or at best has, and lieing to itself and the world that the deal means more than that. And I don’t make any reference here to Clinton at all. This is the facts we face to day. The past be damned.
“Doing nothing (as is currently happening) is pushing NK to sell what they have and to act out.”
I doubt this. This is usually part of the cheap shot. Refusing to acknowledge that the US is following a policy in staying out of the 6 party talks the way North Korea wants them, impliying that a plan is rredially available if we just try, goes hand in hand with the “sky is falling” effect. The crisis has been looming since 2000. It should have caused the end of the universe by now.
NK might decide to sell nukes. But as I think I wrote before, it will have to factor in the gains v risks, and the risks are huge — getting caught selling a nuclear weapon, either in the process or some years later, would give the US a very big push to use military force that is now unthinkable. I would say it would not be an absolute greenlight both for internal US thinking but also in the region and EU (thus the UN), but it would be damned close. North Korea knows this. And since I believe, based on any “real” plans that have been mentioned to date North Korea will always keep some nukes and perhaps the ability to make more either secretly or out in the open, it will always have the chance to sell them.
The idea which seems to be hinted at sometimes, but not so much as the “crisis” has drug out for years, is that we “must” cut ANY deal “before it’s too late” because North Korea is going to start pumping out nuclear bombs like sausages — which means they are going to start selling them to nations or groups that will pay. If North Korea wanted to make sure they do something to force the United States to go to war no matter what the costs, they could take these steps. But North Korea is smareter than that. North Korea to try to sell one or two nukes secretly? Maybe. But, they will always have that option as long as the regime lasts. If we really want to consider this, in fact, I’d say if the US decided to cut a deal where we decided “freezing” North Korea’s current nuclear development and without real, continually, full inspections to assure us there are no nukes or secret nuclear programs,
The car analogy.
You assume the car is going to break down. You assume the car can be fixed. Those are not safe assumptions. To “break down” I would think you mean NK is going to sell nukes abroad. It could also mean not making a deal would lead to a NK collapse that would also lead to a last gasp explosion. These are risks, but they are not sure things by any means. Above all, your car analogy implies that the car will break down eventually “unless something is done.”
That takes away the volition of the North Korean regime. It puts all the weight of the issue on the United States (Bushie). “The car will break down unless he does something to fix it - or at least tries.”
That means North Korea will “have no other choice” but to test a nuclear weapon or more importantly sell a nuke on the open maket if the US continues “to do nothing.”
That is not assured or perhaps even a strong case.
Selling nukes or testing a weapon is not something the US “is forcing” North Korea to do.
Now that I think about it, this is perhaps the key or one of the most key points in dealing with a set of opinions like yours that we do see in the public sphere from time to time.
The US is NOT forcing North Korea to test a nuke or sell them. Some very misguided university students and a few NGO leaders in South Korea might be convinced it is the “US hardline policy” that keeps North Korea from becoming Switzerland, but most of the sane world knows better.
But, I don’t want to stray much from the main analogy…
One measure North Korea could have CHOSEN to do at anytime in this “crisis” is test fire another ICBM. It would be practicle, because they need to see what improvements they have accomplished since the 1998 test which most experts have said was a failure in part. Such a new test would also turn the pressure up — by making the “crisis” seem about to explode — and could force enough people to insist “any” deal must be cut by the US to force the US to do it. But, we can at least guess one reason they Pyongyang hasn’t fired anther ICBM is fear it would backfire and push China and South Korea toward the US hardline position. Or, that it might lead the US to take military action or give the US more geopolitical cover for some form of military action if the NK regime really believes the US is chopping at the bit to strike at it.
Why is this important?
It touches on the car analogy directly.
If North Korea has not CHOSEN to fire an ICBM, is it not reasonable to say they would think even harder about trying to sell a nuclear weapon?
Well, an ICBM test can’t be hidden. An ICBM test also doesn’t generate direct income for the North like selling a nuke would. It’s objective beyond the data needed to see where the ICBM program is right now would be to gain larger concessions by putting more pressure on the US.
Selling nukes would have as a primary objective gaining money, and perhaps a second primary or a secondary objective would be to give someone like Iran a good deterent against US aggression or give some terrorist group the ability to hurt the United States (out of spite for North Korea) and perhaps with the potential added benefit of making the US focus elsewhere besides North Korea or perhaps scaring Americans into a pacifist or isolationist mindset again.
Anyway, my point is that selling nukes or testing one would be a CHOICE North Korea would make. It is not cleary something they would “have to do” if the US doesn’t cut a deal or go to the negociation table.
Right now, why wouldn’t North Korea consider it can keep churning along as is indefinately?
Why would the North Korea regime feel it “must” or even that it “should” test the waters of what will happen after a nuclear test, or if they can sell a nuke successfully without getting caught, right now?
Why is it clear the car is about to break down or is going to break down sometime in the near future?
Off the top of my head, does this car analogy also not work?
The 6 party talks, given the dynamics of the situation, and the reasonable assumed chances of different outcomes given those dynamics, are like a tire that has gone flat.
You can keep going along on that wheel or the rim for a good long distance especially if you aren’t in a rush about it. I think we’ve all seen that proven on Cops Most Outrageous Car Chases.
Or, you can change that tire with your spare. Maybe the spare isn’t a the most expensive and high quality Michellin (sp?) on the market, and it doesn’t provide great performance, but it gets the job done a whole lot better than riding on the rim and it especially doesn’t do greater damage to the other parts of the car.
And if you don’t have enough money in the bank and won’t have enough extra cash on hand anytime soon to buy an adequate new or used tire or pay a mechanic to fix it and other problems, what is outrageous about continuing to use the spare indefinately?
The problem for positions like those spelled out by James is that they will not acknoledge the existence of the spare tire.
It is buy a new or put on a retredded tire, or else the whole time car is going to explode.
But
“It is buy a new or put on a retredded tire, or else the whole time car is going to explode.”
should be “the whole damn car”
If the 6 party talks created a frame work including as a key part that South Korea, Japan, and China would agree to completely cut North Korea off (including humanitarian assistance) to thus force North Korea into collapse and/or agree to take military action against North Korea if the agreement is not honored, maybe it would have some value. It might be the only way to force North Korea to really follow through.
But, I am not going to wait for such an agreement, because SK and China will never go for it.
And many other people around the world, though perhaps not a majority, would consider whine and cry and say cutting off North Korea would be a criminial act. It would be something like Germany, France, and Russia did for Iraq before 9/11.
And there would be plenty of politicians in South Korea and people elsewhere who would do exactly like James did and say breaking the treaty was either a tie or the US is more so to blame — at minimum, a good number of people would say the fault is enough that of the US for any penalty clauses not to be held against North Korea but forgotten in favor of another new agreement.
I like the idea of an agreement that will lock the other non-North Korean nations into set carrots and sticks, but I don’t believe those nations can be counted on to provide the sticks per agreement.
Kind of like the UN…..
Pyongyang has invited New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson to Pyongyang.
They like Bill Richardson-he has worked with them before as part of the Clinton administration I think. Some of the NorKs that are in NY with the UN even got special permission once to visit Bill Richardson in New Mexico.
I don’t know a lot about him, but from small amounts I’ve seen, Richardson is one of the Democrats, actually one of the few politicians period - I like.
On a side note, I liked the now dead Sen. Paul Wellstone too. I disagreed with him pretty much all the time on foreign policy and often on domestic policy too, but he cut through the bullshit. He was not “a player” like Levin or Clinton or the bulk of the political leadership. It was clear he almost always had at heart —- the good of the American people overall — not simply his own good or the good of the party. I might have disagreed with what he thought was best, but I didn’t question his heart.
With Richardson, I find him more a moderate on foriegn issues even if he does follow the main party line when he is in a position where he is supposed to represent the party (like when he was in the Clinton administration).
Bill Richardson for President!