Clinton’s North Korea policy architect Bill Perry, on the other hand, got to work Bush-bashing right from the get-go of his op-ed to the WaPo on Wednesday:
North Korea’s declared nuclear bomb test program will increase the incentives for other nations to go nuclear, will endanger security in the region and could ultimately result in nuclear terrorism. While this test is the culmination of North Korea’s long-held aspiration to become a nuclear power, it also demonstrates the total failure of the Bush administration’s policy toward that country. For almost six years this policy has been a strange combination of harsh rhetoric and inaction.
You have to wait seven paragraphs before Perry begins offering something resembling useful advice. Actually, no, wait, he just continues to bash Bush. Yeah, the Bush administration hasn’t punished North Korea for behaving badly, but at least it hasn’t rewarded it with direct talks, heavy fuel oil, light-water reactors, visits by the Secretary of State or basketballs signed by MJ. He’s right that the North Korea situation has sent a bad message to Iran, but that message—start up a nuke program and the West will pay you for it—was sent way before Bush took office.
At least Sen. McCain spent most of his post making policy suggestions before getting into the Clinton bashing. Perry, on the other hand, had a perfect opportunity to use his space in the WaPo to say something constructive, and instead wastes it on bashing the current administration in a defensive attempt to justify his own record.
Even Perry’s pot-addled WaPo op-ed in June calling for Bush to launch air-strikes on North Korea’s ballistic missile test site was more helpful.
I don’t want to minimize the importance of North Korea’s recent nuke test, but really, we all need to FREAKIN’ CHILL. Fundamentally, nothing has changed except my blog’s hit count, which is up. Way up. Is there anybody out who hasn’t been operating under the assumption that North Korea had nukes? No, I didn’t think so. All this does is make it official. And frankly, the test might work out well for the United States, especially if it’s able to channel negative international opinion into turning the screws on North Korea. At worst, it might encourage Japan and South Korea to develop their own nuclear deterrents, something that, in the long run, is probably a good thing.
For all the talk about North Korea’s masterful diplomacy, it doesn’t have many cards left that don’t end with South Korea becoming an island. Sure, it can test more nukes. Sure, it can reprocess more plutonium. It could also test more and better missiles. But in the end, they can’t use ‘em or sell ‘em without provoking the Americans into ending North Korea as we know it. And they sure as hell can’t eat ‘em. Have the Bush administration’s North Korea policies been a failure? I don’t think so, but the argument could be made. But I do know that North Korea’s U.S. policy, i.e., scare the Round Eyes into paying up, hasn’t produced the desired results, either. North Korea is a starving regime surviving on Chinese and South Korean largess. The United States isn’t. The only thing the North Koreans have going for them is the hope that if they hold out long enough, they’ll be able to deal with a Democrat in the White House willing to give Pyongyang what it wants.
In the meantime, they’ll try their best to act really, really scary. But as long as everyone remains calm and doesn’t do anything stupid like a) cave into Pyongyang or b) start firing off Tomahawks at North Korean nuclear facilities, everyone will be just fine. Heck, the North Koreans might even realize one day that they’re banging their heads against the wall and make a “strategic decision” to improve their relations with the United States through means other than nuclear blackmail.
14 Comments
The best thing the Bush administration has done was to cut off the money, via Macau banks and whatnot. If the Japanese really do the same (as they say they will), so much the better. Sure, the NKs only get around $100 million or so a year from their supporters in Japan (although I have heard numbers as high as $400 million in the past), but for NK, I bet that is $100 million the yangban-gangsters in Pyongyang will feel.
Now to get South Korean and China to turn off their spigots…
Perry is a hypocrite who doesn’t criticizes Bush for basically following the advice put forth in the 1999 ‘Perry Report.’ When he started playing to politics rather than sticking with reality, he lost my respect.
‘north can’t sell them because that would make sk an island.’
just like i said, north korea has used it’s last card since it can’t sell or do anything else with it’s new and fancy weapon. the north koreans should take note that even pawi would support a military strike on them should they sell their nukes to such nice folks as al gayda.
‘clinton’s fault.’ mccain
mccain says that the clinton policy of engagement was a failure and thus, would not have worked as a policy for the bush administration. really? we don’t really know that since engagement was never bush’s policy. what we do know is that the policy of ‘all options are on the table’ was and is a absolute failure. clinton’s fault? i think not. the fault lies clearly with bush.
‘over 600,000 iraqis dead as a result of bush war.’ headlines
If anything Bush’s policy has been a great success depending on your perspective. NK has been forced to show their hand and guess what, they don’t have what they said they have. Both their ICBM and nuclear program and definitely lacking which the US never would have known without them doing their tests. This increases the US’s bargaining power if talks ever do resume. Plus their tests has created a wedge between NK and the Chinese. The Chinese are the real key to bringing down Kim Jong-il if they cut the oil going into NK. Once again none of this would have happened with the appeasement policy.
If you are for regime removal like myself this policy is a success, if you are for appeasement and status quo it is a failure.
@ pawikirogi,
Since you brought up the Iraq civilians dead headlines feel free to head over to Milblogs (http://www.mudvillegazette.com/milblogs/) where our Milblog crew has already debunked the report you mention. It is nothing but more leftist propaganda before the November mid-term election.
Sorry Marm, but this is the real deal. Fecal matter has hit the fan. You say that DPRK can’t sell them. But if they did sell them, you assume US won’t push back that “redline”. Do you really believe that? I don’t think we are going to nuke Tehran when Iran has nukes either. George W. Bush, no less, wasn’t willing to send a cruise missile at DPRK plutonium stockpile, he like all those “pu55ies” that conservatives point out, decided to follow his predecessor’s decision to cross fingers and wait and hope. Only difference between Bush and Clinton is that Clinton was willing to pay appeasement money and hope that that would slow down DPRK’s nuke progress—and Bush didn’t see the point in it. DPRK has been “eating” on those nukes and missiles for years. We’ve been flinging mud at each other deciding whether appeasement was really slowing down nuclear progress or destroying relationships with China or ROK. In short DPRK is free to do whatever crap it wants to unless China has a say. But really. Detonation occurred Sunday night, my time. It’s like Wednesday here, and I’m still reading news like China doesn’t want to do this or that. What that tells me is that countries like China/SK didn’t have a contingency plan for this. They NEVER thought about what they would do if the crap hit the fan. That sort of makes me nervous, because for all I know Roh can go full speed left and become a bbalchisan.
If we are “lucky” and the dust settles, then in a few years time a non-Bush US president WILL reverse course and start having bilateral talks with DPRK. The thing is, we are changing presidents all the time and they have an “eternal” president. Then we are going to recycle this argument all over again, and some new poster will say something and will think that he is saying something truly original and insightful.
BUT like i said, i’m not so optimistic. Like all those people flippin’ out, I too think DPRK is getting really desperate to force everyone’s hand like this. A desperate DPRK is not a cause for joy, because they won’t go down pretty. Professor Lankov always seem to hint that there will never be a “happy” ending to this. When I used to think about a “bad ending” to this couple years ago, it was Chemical Biological shells exploding on top of, well you, since you live there. What, 50-50 chance for survival? Now it’s nukes. Cockroaches have better chance than you. People who live there don’t worry, well, I never worried about stuff like this when I lived there either. That’s acculturation. But things really, God honest, has been this bad since DPRK soldiers hacked US servicemen at Panmunjom.
Minute hand is really fuc*n’ close to twelve. I hope to God that I am an ignorant fool and is completely over reacting.
In response to: “Is there anybody out who hasn’t been operating under the assumption that North Korea had nukes? No, I didn’t think so.” Actually, I’m one. I presume that they have been working on one for years, and that they had more than one program, the less promising of which they sacrificed for the Clinton deal. I do not put it past the Norks to fabricate a nuclear explosion (remember the “mysterious mushroom cloud” of 18 months or so ago?), particularly in the wake of so spectacular a failure as their missile test. This is NOT to say that the situation is not dangerous, and that the U.S. should not take the fat boy’s assertion at face value. Hell, let’s accept their statement for the time being, squeeze them until their pips pop, and then if things die down, trot out any scientific evidence that confirms that this event was non-nuclear, or at least casts serious doubt on it, and start nailing them for a gigantic fraud, perhaps undermining further the fat boy’s creditibility.
Robert (or is it Richard?)–
Liked how you put the word “heck” into your last sentence. Intentional? We could certainly cool things down with a few (lame) puns…
It’s Robert. And the “heck” was not an intentional pun, although now that you point it out, there’s definitely potential there for creative use of the word.
Although I think Bush has screwed up a lot of things, ok - A LOT of things, as a long time north Korea observer, I can tell you his policy has been right on. While it may seem like we are ignoring the problem, what is the alternative? Talk to them and get empty promises in return?
While many believed that we should have talked directly with north Korea, it would not have done any good. We talked in 1994, gave them everything they wanted, and they reciprocated by starting a covert plutionium program. We had a quasi agreement (through 6 party talks) last fall, only for north Korea to turn around and renege on any deals made to reduce tensions and address the problem.
While it may appear dangerous to let this problem fester, especially in terms of regional stability and long term proliferation issues, to allow north Korea to sabre rattle and test its nukes, the situation is still manageable. We assumed they had them anyway, if the test turns out to be real, then it only confirms a potential capability to produce and eventually employ them. Over-reacting right now would not help anyone. I loved all the articles and people that questioned right away whethter Japan would go nuclear. Lets give this a chance to play out and develop policies based on rationale thought and not emotion.
Remember, there really is no north Korean State Government, its a mafia organization that is trying to extort a little more blood money. The norks continue to try and exploit the percieved differences between the ROK-US Alliance Alliance to acheive their end-state of US withdrawal from the peninsula. This has been sucessful, especially with the ROKs insistence on maintaining the “sunstupid policy”. This may be coming to an end as the ROKs have lost face, especially since it was probably ROK cement that was used in making the test chamber and the norks at the site were probably eating Nong Shim ramyon as they watched for the big boom.
By talking to them under veiled threats of force, we will accomplish nothing.
Yankees Fan: Too bad about Detroit and shouldn’t you be working?
I agree with your analysis. Talking with thugs like Little Elvis and Iranian nutjobs gets you nowhere. And fundamentally nothing has changed here in Seoul–the military response option has been pretty much off the table since whenever it was they started pointing 152mm artillery tubes this way. Nukes don’t change that fact.
I’ve noticed that most of the Bush Administration’s supporters don’t live in the United States. Things are different here.
‘the 300,000 is just leftist propoganda.’
to me, this shows the bankruptcy of so many human beings. is this a numbers game? you mean, if only 90,000 were killed instead of 300,000, that would make it ok? this country lost 3000 of it’s citizens on 9/11 and what does president bush do? he starts a war with a people who had nothing to do with september 11th. this man and his supporters have brought about the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. that fact is not interesting to them, though. they’re more interested in arguing about numbers with the budweiser logic that less makes better. they’ll never contemplate the morality of bush’s war because that would be suicide for their humanity. and can you imigine? these are the people who claimed to be civilized.
november 3 almost here. do i hear the word ‘impeach’?
The whole world needs to seize on this opportunity, patiently but steadfastly, to get rid of the DPRK and bring about the unification of Korea. The Kim Family Regime is clearly a blight on mankind, arguably the worst government to exist in human history and a failure even if measured by Socialist standards (ie food & shelter are the only human rights that matter). Anything that doesn’t remove the Pyongyang leadership guarantees we will face this problem again in a few years. China and even the obtuse Uri Party/Roh’s South Korea know this. The West’s job will be to sell North Korea’s neighbors on a program that deals with their concerns about refugees and chaos and, later, China’s worries about a unified Korea being pro-US and allowing American troops on the Yalu/Tumen borders.
North Korea should now be blanketed with Korean language leaflets that tell them the truth about how far their country has fallen and what the civilized world actually thinks of Kim Jong-il, who started the Korean War, who decided to cut them off from the world, how much international aid was given to them since 1995, who/what stands in the way of them getting more aid, who pockets the salaries of Kaesong laborers and Siberian slave loggers, etc. Let the wrath of the masses do what Clinton/Kim DJ/Roh appeasement and Bush’s hawk engagement could not.