Posted on 07/09/2007 7:36:57 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
By David Frum Posted: Monday, July 2, 2007
ARTICLES National Post (Canada) Publication Date: June 30, 2007
Resident Fellow David Frum
The BBC interviewer was solicitous. "Mr. Froom," he began. (British interviewers almost always pronounce my name with a long vowel, just as they invariably pronounce Paul Wolfowitz's name, "Vulfovitz." I suppose they must be trying to encourage us to take more pride in our Eastern European roots. Or something.)
"Mr. Froom: Isn't this newest North Korea deal a great victory for realism over the more ideological approach of the 'axis of evil'?"
I like questions like that--puts the cards right on the table. But you need a little history to understand what the interviewer was driving at.
| These negotiations reassure North Korea they can have their weapons and their aid too: a perfect outcome from a North Korean point of view, a pretty good one from China's, and absolutely appalling from the point of view of the rest of the world. |
North Korea has pursued a nuclear bomb since at least the 1980s. It completed a Soviet-style plutonium-production reactor at Yongbyon in 1986. By 1992, North Korea had extracted enough plutonium to build at least two nuclear bombs.
President Clinton seriously considered bombing the North Korean reactors. In the end, however, he struck a deal: The U.S. and its allies Japan and South Korea would provide the North Korean regime with food and energy aid. In return, North Korea would suspend its weapons program.
Hands were shaken, and aid delivered--and the cheating began almost at once. In 1997, U.S. intelligence discovered that North Korea had made a secret deal with Pakistan: In exchange for North Korean missile technology, the Pakistanis gave North Korea high-speed centrifuges and advice on building a uranium-based bomb.
In February, 2002, President Bush cited North Korea as one of the "axis of evil" states allied with terrorists and arming to threaten the peace of the world. In October, 2002, the Bush administration confronted North Korea with proof of its cheating. Aid to North Korea was suspended, and new sanctions imposed.
North Korea reacted by restarting its old plutonium reactors, withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and quickly extracting more plutonium from its old Yongbyon fuel rods. In October, 2006, North Korea tested a plutonium-based nuclear bomb.
The test jolted the Bush administration into relaunching Clinton-style diplomacy: direct face-to-face negotiations with North Korea. In February, 2007, the administration announced a Clinton-style deal: economic aid to North Korea would resume in exchange for more North Korean promises to behave in future.
Alas, no sooner had the deal been struck than North Korea began to break it. It missed an April deadline to shut down its reactor, demanding the release of U.S. $25 million in frozen North Korean funds. The Bush administration gave way in mid-June. The North Koreans still did not close the reactor, but they agreed to allow UN inspectors into the country.
President Bush's special envoy, Christopher Hill, now predicts that North Korea will shut down the reactor in mid-July. We'll see.
But what if anything will that accomplish?
Graham Allison, a nuclear expert who served as assistant secretary of defence in the Clinton administration, estimates that North Korea has built an arsenal of 10 nuclear weapons. In a May, 2007, oped in the Boston Globe, Allison observed:
"[Kim Jong-Il's] goal is to keep these weapons, sell the aging Yongbyon reactor and reprocessing facility for the highest price, and do this in a way that shows sufficient deference to Beijing to restore its de facto protection."
Allison predicts that Kim Jong-Il will succeed.
"After the closing and disabling of Yongbyon, expect lengthy slogging through incomplete records, all in Korean script, missed deadlines, disputes about who can visit where, and all the other antics that have left International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors unable to close the nuclear file in Iran after 20 years of efforts."
In other words, the Bush administration's diplomatic policy will deliver the worst of all possible outcomes: a nuclear-armed North Korea sustained by Western economic aid. And the BBC calls that "realism."
The North Korean regime survives courtesy of Chinese aid and protection. It is China that provides the North Korean regime with coal, food and credit. Without Chinese aid, the regime could not endure: remember, this is a regime that regards U.S. $25-million in frozen assets as an enormous sum. (South Korea generates $25 million in new wealth every 11 minutes.)
China supports North Korea because it dreads a North Korean collapse. The Chinese leaders know that such a collapse would unify the peninsula under a democratic government based in Seoul and aligned with the U.S. and Japan--for them, a terrifying outcome.
These negotiations reassure North Korea they can have their weapons and their aid too: a perfect outcome from a North Korean point of view, a pretty good one from China's, and absolutely appalling from the point of view of the rest of the world.
If this is "realism," what would fantasy look like?
But Bush will get a pet on the head by his dad and Condi will get A+ from CFR. Everybody will sing Gumbaya on the new-found realsim which (temporarily) reassured the safety of financial portfolios by bribing China and N. Kroea.
Bush suckered by China, ping!
Bump.
Hey jet latest on Chia Pet and North Korea
You know what? I think W is getting suckered almost as badly as JIMMY CARTER...!
do ya think we could get china to send n.korea their poisened food and lead coated toys. i am sure kim ill wouldn’t care
JULY 2007.
BUSH LOST.
KIM JONG-IL WON.
'NUFF SAID.
I so wash my hands of the Bush Administration. Particularly on this issue, if not the illegal immigration amnesty thingy.
Exactly. George W. Bush, professing Christian that he is, has chosen to submit to, and by this ‘agreement’ with North Korea has essentially condoned the actions of a genocidal regime, a regime which is by many definitions even more brutal and sadistic than Nazi Germany itself.
Countless concentration camps, gulags, and chemical-biological experimentation facilities where the ‘subjects’ are entire families removed from North Korean society for the flimsiest of reasons, or on the whim of any one of Comrade Chia Pet’s political toadies.
Starvation is the rule, except for the privileged class holding all political power.
The blood of innocent North Koreans is on the hands of George W. Bush as surely as the blood of hundreds of thousands of victims of the 8 year long Iran-Iraq War is on the hands of Jimmy Carter. We should not have been signing treaties and making agreements with the demonic scum in Pyongyang running the show, we should have been forcing regime change for the sake of the North Korean people, and Beijing and the rest of the world be damned.
This is a shameful moment for America.
Anybody who thinks that the dud of a test in October 2006 "jolted the Bush administration into relaunching Clinton-style diplomacy: direct face-to-face negotiations with North Korea." is engaged in fantasy - this simply didn't happen, State Dept insisted on the same terms it offered before the "test" as part of six-party talks. That has put pressure on China which is scared more than anybody of unstable Kim with his possible unstable future nuke experiments.
"Graham Allison, a nuclear expert who served as assistant secretary of defence in the Clinton administration" - oh, goody, where would this article be without relying on yet another Clinton administration expert?
"The North Korean regime survives courtesy of Chinese aid and protection. It is China that provides the North Korean regime with coal, food and credit. Without Chinese aid, the regime could not endure" - exactly! which is why six-party talks concentrated on China and ignored Kim's wishes of direct US-NoKo talks...
China supports North Korea because it dreads a North Korean collapse. The Chinese leaders know that such a collapse would unify the peninsula under a democratic government based in Seoul and aligned with the U.S. and Japan--for them, a terrifying outcome - another Frum's fantasy; based on reunification experience of Germany, it's more likely that unification will lead to some kind of more socialistic kind of government, with closer political and trade ties to China and even less reliable US partner than it is now, whether it is based in Seoul or not. This will only relieve China from worrying about and subsidizing her unstable neighbor and assure that Korean Peninsula and Japan will not "go nuclear" leaving fewer countries able to challenge them with that power in SE Asia. Korean unification, if not done on right terms, could be a very dangerous development for US and can reshape the map of our SE alliances.
"These negotiations reassure North Korea they can have their weapons and their aid too" - how? no progress - no aid... it's not a Clinton-Albright-UN deal.
"If this is "realism," what would fantasy look like?
Like this article?
Condi is that you?
Of course you have think their was some consideration if we say forced them into a military confrontation. Since they had at least two nukes (1994 CIA estimated four) then how many millions would died if South Korea was vaporized? We are stretched thin militarily. Japan is re-arming with at least strong naval defense capabilities under our direction. We just weren’t ready to confront them say five years ago and now they certainly have more nukes. What is scary is that the end game for China to move militarily on Asia and Taiwan is North Korea. Cut off that aid and I don’t agree with the author they will unite as a democracy, I believe Kim will attack the South.
APPEASEMENT: IN
One can see it here, right here in Asia.
We, the USA, are the laughing stock of Asia. In terms of North Korea, as viewed from the Asian perspective, we are no stronger under Bush in 2007 then we were under Clinton in 1997.
It has all come unravelled. The appeasers have won.
Some legacy, Mr. Bush. On January 20, 2009 you leave office and head for a small ranch in Texas. Kim Jong il remains in power, eating cavier, with 10-15 nukes under his control (10-15 nukes that were NOT there under the Clinton regime) and developing even more agressive ballistic technology (revised scuds for example) to attack Japan and our US forces there, and moving toward ICBM capabilities.
SOME GREAT LEGACY. PEACE IN OUR TIME.
Might be of interest to you guys.
Who stupid idea was this AIT Dubya or Sunshine Condi
Agreed.
Saddam had specific assurances he would not be toppled.
He was.
Libya opened up and Syria left Lebanon.
Once the world saw that we, the Americans, started to falter and become weary (the left) they knew that they had nothing to fear from America. I believe the State Dept. saw this and has been advising policy based on it.
Now, Syria is back in Lebanon, Iran is posturing, and Little Kimmie is posturing.
Appeasement is ineffective every time it is tried.
Well, we know where the “Buck” ultimately stops, as President Truman said.
Because U.S. won't do anything against China, economically let along militarily.
Another scenario is that N. Korea could blink, at least some element of N. Korean military. The last time N. Korea blinked is in '76 when U.S. was fully prepared to move 100km into N. Korean territory after the infamous ax murder.
They are ruthless beyond pale, but not suicidal. If combined pressure of U.S. and China(however grudgingly) it will produce results. The trouble is nobody wants to lean hard on China, and China knows it.
All this worry about S. Korean casualties is in part justified, but there is a way to choke N. Korean regime if you have the will to do it. If they think choking is a bad option, appeasing is ten times worse.
Timid extremely risk-averse people who are always nervous that something could happen to their shaky inflated financial portfolios and always given to delusion that there is some "clever" way out of it. Anything less is the mentality of the blockhead and the stupid, according to them.
I give more chance to Kim's regime suddenly buckling on its own rather than the success of this ludicrous engagement.
As I argued from time to time, N. Korean regime will go down due to events beyond any outside players' control. Probably at quite an unexpected moment. And worst nightmare for these major players will unfold: Uncontrollable and unpredictable series of changes.
Changes in Korean Peninsula tend to be rather turbulent even in good times. All major players dragged their feet and contributed to turning containable turbulence into totally uncontrollable one. It is their karma to be the receiving end of what their folly brought about. It is just beginning.
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