Chris Hill Resignation Watch: Lord and Gelb in the Washington Post

Winston Lord and Lawrence Gelb are two senior members of Washington’s foreign policy establishment,  a constituency that has  been pushing, conditionally, for  Agreed Framework 2.0 ever since the death of Agreed Framework 1.0.  The establishment has supported, in principle, the idea of  making a deal  and sacrificing adjectives to get one, but  they’ve always kept  one eye on the exits in case the North Koreans just wouldn’t play along.  Maybe the flaw for which they can be most faulted is failing to recognize the inevitability of that condition, but either way,  there are signs that  the audience is leaving the theater.  It’s got to sting when a former adviser to Jimmy Carter says this:

The two of us can hardly be counted as conservative die-hards opposing deals with Pyongyang. We believe that Washington and its allies are rightly committed to exploring even the remotest chance that Pyongyang might give up its nuclear weapons. While reaching for that larger goal, our negotiators can seek to cap North Korea’s nuclear inventory and head off proliferation.

We oppose both abandoning the September 2005 agreement and allowing Pyongyang to eviscerate it. Better to let the talks continue than to make one-sided concessions. Better to sharpen North Korean compliance or — failing that — to string out our own.

Bush can sustain international unity by making clear that his goal is to hold Pyongyang to its 2005 commitments. This is the only way to preserve American credibility and bargaining leverage. It is also the only way to maintain political support in Washington for these difficult negotiations.

This is the legacy Bush should bequeath to his successor.  [Winston Lord and Lawrence Gelb in the Washington Post]