If Only They Had Listened to Us: Fact-Checking the Dems on North Korea

Update:   I was just wondering when we would hear from America’s worst ex-president.  Scroll down.

“I concur with most [of] the president’s policy on North Korea.”

— Howard Dean, January 5, 2003 (ht).

“Under the President’s watch, North Korea has become more dangerous and Iran continues to threaten its neighbors and America. Democrats remain committed to a foreign policy that is both tough and smart.

— Howard Dean, October 9, 2006.

If you’re looking for a defense of this Administration’s North Korea policy, look elsewhere.  This Adminstration wasted six years on  pointless* and endless talks with a regime that was clearly negotiating in bad faith, lying about the extent of its nuclear programs, violating every rule and norm of human civilization, and clearly demonstrating its  disinterest in  disarmament.

Its  policy was, in other words, a  slightly less gullible  extension of  the policy Clinton pursued for eight years, beginning when North Korea probably did not yet have nuclear weapons, and which his party would still be pursuing to this day.   The Bush and Clinton policies even share a key architect, who has remained in a high State Department position through both administrations.  If only our national debate were better served, with better criticism.  At a minimum, it ought to  come  from someone other than  those who failed so miserably at stopping  North Korea from going nuclear in the first place. 

One question with which we should start is this:  is this North Korea’s first nuke test?  I do not refer to the question of whether this was really a nuke test at all, something I will let those with more technical knowledge debate.   Nor do I refer to yesterday’s false alarm, probably caused by  Pulgasari awakening off North Korea’s coast.  Instead, I refer to  this 2004  New York Times report, noting that  North Korea may have tested  its first  nuke in Pakistan in 1998. 

You may believe that report, and you may not, but by 2000, North Korea was (1) not contained, (2)  probably already a nuclear power, (3) lying about a second, uranium-based program, in violation of the Agreed Framework (“The DPRK will consistently take steps to implement the North-South Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”), (4) developing other WMD’s  at a furious rate, (5) proliferating  with abandon — selling enriched uranium, nuclear technology,  and other WMD’s to terrorist backers (we found some of their uranium hexafluoride in Libya),  and  (6) counterfeiting our currency. 

This was a bad situation indeed, and it is good that the pretenses to the contrary were at least dropped, and not good that things went no further from there.  Once Kim Jong Il had nukes, it  become progressively more apparent  that he wasn’t interested in giving them up voluntarily at any price.  I’m still waiting to hear Democratic (or Republican) thinkers propose any involuntary ways to disarm him, since an invasion would be a thousands times as bloody as Iraq.  And when the Bush Administration ultimately signed a  deal with North Korea that was too generous to the latter by half, North Korea repudiated it within 24 hours.

Now that the question of North Korea’s intent is somewhat better clarified, we are forced to do some serious thinking:   will we  live with Kim Jong Il’s nukes — and he’s never made anything he didn’t sell  —  or are we  earnest about  finding some relatively low-risk option for living without Kim Jong Il? 

There’s no time for that yet.  We’re still blaming each other.

The Criticisms

The Bush Administration Has Ignored the Problem / Iraq Distracted Us

“While we’ve been bogged down in Iraq where there were no weapons of mass destruction, a madman has apparently tested the ultimate weapon of mass destruction.”  — John Kerry

A superficial criticism, from a  superficial thinker, and deserving of  a superficial response (it’s also misleading, if you  compare it to  final report of the Iraq Survey Group).   It is a criticism that can only be honestly lodged only by those who believe that the  Third Infantry Division should be  patrolling the streets of  Wonsan instead of  Ramadi, or that  the Seventh Fleet  should be pacifying Anbar  Province.   Kerry, who never saw a war he didn’t want to lose, was an advocate of bilateral and multilateral talks with North Korea (which is really what we’ve had), and offered no “tougher and smarter” option in the event that didn’t work.  In fact, no one in either party  has suggested starting a ground war in Korea, thank God.  There have been two hairbrained calls for preemptive air strike on its missile launch pad,  via Newt Gingrich and William Perry.  That idea would have brought us to disaster, which is probably why Perry didn’t exercise it against North Korea’s plutonium reactor at Yongbon back in the 1990’s, when he was Clinton’s Defense Secretary, and when it might have been worth considering.

This criticism is also dishonest.  Make no mistake:  those who claim that Iraq was a distraction from North Korea want to  disguise weakness as being  “strong on national security.”  In reality, they would retreat from both conflicts, neither of which can be solved by talking.  What is their actual position?  We’ll get to that, because they haven’t exactly explained.

We Threw Bad Diplomacy After Good

No, we threw bad diplomacy after worse.   I won’t go through the long history of North Korea’s umpteen dozen flagrant violations of the NPT, resulting in the latter’s unilateral pullout, followed by the Agreed Framework.  It’s not that it’s too much work, it’s just that I’ve already done it, here, in response to Nicholas Kristof’s risible accusation that North Korea went nuclear during Bush’s watch.  If you have any illusions that the Agreed Framework had made us safer, just read that chronology.

Not Enough Multilateralism

[I]n a nutshell, shortly after Bush became president in 2001 he destroyed years of careful international diplomacy with North Korea just by being the asshole that he is.

It’s deep stuff  to be sure, but one should expect as much from a “Kim Jing Il” expert.  There were those who once thought Hitler and Stalin were manageable, too.  This sort of stuff just comes naturally  to some people; be thankful if you’re not one of them.  Is this representative of the Democratic “mainstream?”  Well, it was when Dean was running for president.

Another example of the Administration’s ineptness is on the Korean Peninsula, where U.S. policy has been incoherent, inconsistent and dangerously disengaged. Instead of building on a process of dialogue with North Korea, fully supported by South Korea and other East Asian allies, the Administration essentially walked away from the region for almost two years.

Dean is actually  right that the Bush Adminstration’s North Korea policy review took far too long — so did Clinton’s —  and appears to reflect four more years of factional paralysis that followed.  It should not have taken this long to realize that the North Koreans has no serious interest in disarming.   Dean’s criticism of Bush’s supposed insufficiency of multilateralism  can only exist if you know next-to-nothing about South Korean politics, however.  It  fails to comprehend South Korea’s decision to alienate itself from the United States, to China’s delight.

Too Much Multilateralism

Over the last four years, the Bush Administration has outsourced our diplomacy with North Korea to other nations and failed to take the lead in making sure America remains safe and secure. 

— Democratic Party Statement

Translation:  we should have excluded “our allies,” “the U.N.,” and everyone John Kerry spent 2004 saying we’d alienated over Iraq.  The Bush Administration has talked to the North Koreans all along, but has generally preferred to do so since proposing six-nation talks.  Even this rule was flexible; witness the “New York Channel,” a long-running dialogue between Ambassador Joseph DiTrani and North Korea’s #2 diplomat at the U.N., Han Song-Ryol.

Multilateral diplomacy is only as good as the diplomatic positions of the parties, of course.    Neither  Bush  nor  Clinton should be blamed for the intransigence and bad faith of  some of those we’ve dealt with — most significantly, the North Koreans — but both can be blamed for failing to recognize bad faith sooner,  and  for failing to  pursue better options.

There’s a mixed verdict on our other “allies” and “partners.”  Our diplomacy hasn’t worked terribly well on South Korea, which has declared itself a neutral state, repeatedly undercut U.S. diplomatic positions, and unilaterally abrogated key  parts of  its long-standing alliance with  the United States.  My recent congressional testimony lays out the entire sordid history of how we “lost” South Korea, but when I arrived there in 1998, it was already apparent that that process was well advanced.  The current South Korean administration and its predecessor (elected in 1997) have missed few opportunities to demagogue anti-Americanism or undermine U.S. policies.

Our diplomacy worked pretty poorly with China for a long time, but recently, things have changed for the better, and China surprised me by voting for the last U.N. resolution condemning North Korea.  I attribute that to three things.  First, China doesn’t want North Korea scaring the neighbors back into strong alliances with the United States.  Second, North Korea’s missile and nuke tests defied China’s public demands to the contrary and humiliated China.  Third, the United States finally  appears to have sent the message  that  China’s support for  North Korea actions would have financial consequences for China.

In other areas, the record has been better.  Japan has shared our interest in defanging North Korea since the 1998 Taepodong I launch and the revelations about  North Korea’s  abduction of its citizens.  In fact, we made a tacit agreement with Japan to let them lead at the United Nations after the July missile tests.  Our real multilateral masterstroke is the Proliferation Security Initiative, something we’re about to hear much more about.  Its architect was none other than John Bolton, that bull in the diplomatic China shop,  who foresaw that the U.N. alone would never act effectively to stop nuclear proliferation.

The Howard Dean Plan

“Under the President’s watch, North Korea has become more dangerous and Iran continues to threaten its neighbors and America. Democrats remain committed to a foreign policy that is both tough and smart. — Howard Dean

The first sentence is true.  The second is false.   Again, here is the long story of how  the Clinton Administration’s “tough and smart” policy brought us to a nuclear North Korea.  But does Howard Dean’s party have fresh new ideas?  Start with its National Security Plan, which promises to …

[r]ebouble efforts to stop nuclear weapons development in Iran and North Korea.

That’s twelve words — one dependent clause  in bullet form  — devoted to  both of the world’s greatest proliferation challenges.  The “National Security” plan expended more words on Halliburton, oil prices,  and promoting  “energy independence,” apparently through tax policies and conservation.  Returning briefly to the subject at hand, three words it might also have added are “horse,” “barn,” and “door,” because once a country goes nuclear, you lose most of your options for denuclearizing it.  As with its discussion of Iraq, the  National Security Plan doesn’t  explain how it will actually achieve this. 

Continue searching for the Democratic  agenda for North Korea and you will find just two documents in the last 16 months devoted primarily to North Korea (that’s as far back as the archives show any results).  One  is this three-and-a-half-line statement preceding North Korea’s last missile test.  The other, from June 2005,  claimed that “BUSH KEEPS GIVING NORTH KOREA REASONS TO ABANDON TALKS,” which is like accusing  a rehab center of giving  Robert Downey, Jr. more reasons to smoke crack.  This document predates the latest “reason,” which is our decision to freeze assets North Korea acquired by selling dope and counterfeiting U.S. currency, but its assignment of blame cites North Korea’s own arguments with apparent approval and places zero blame on North Korea itself. 

BUSH FORCED NORTH KOREA TO ABANDON “SUNSHINE POLICY”

North Korea Threatened To End Non-Proliferation Agreement In Reaction To Bush’s “Brigandish” Attitude. North Korea threatened to end its freeze on missile launches and nuclear development because of the “brigandish” attitude of the Bush administration. A North Korean foreign ministry spokesman accused the US of not keeping to a 1994 accord under which it froze its suspected nuclear weapons program. The spokesman warned that a moratorium on missile launches in place since September 1999 would be abandoned unless the Bush administration made an agreement on missile proliferation….

N. Korea Cancelled Talks with S. Korea In Retaliation For Bush Canceling Talks With Them. After Bush expressed skepticism about North Korea and indefinitely postponed talks, North Korea called off Cabinet-level talks with South Korea just hours before they were to begin. “North Korea may have delayed the meeting because it has not yet set its stance on how to cope with last week’s Kim-Bush summit,” said Koh Yu-hwan, a professor of North Korea studies at Seoul’s Dongguk University….

Bipartisan Senators Criticized Bush Administration Policy on North Korea as Inadequate. During testimony by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, the two ranking members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Ranking Member Joseph Biden (D-DE), criticized the Bush administration’s policy on North Korea as inadequate. Calling the Bush administration’s North Korea policy “largely reactive and predictable,” Biden ordered the administration to regain the initiative on discussions. Lugar said that Bush should show “immediate U.S. leadership” by increasing dialogue and selecting a senior coordinator for the policy…

They don’t dare to say it out loud, but between the lines, you can see the outlines of a return to eternal concessions  and payoffs:  Dane Geld.  Note the criticism of President Bush’s refusal to sign on to South Korea’s “Sunshine” policy, which  has meant exactly that, and which has been  neither “tough” nor “smart,” and which has  earned South Korea’s ruling party an approval rating of just nine percent.  To be sure, this is not an exclusively Democratic affliction.   What is absent from all of these  pleas for more diplomacy is any hint  about where all this dialogue will lead, when it will finally accomplish something, or why we should believe that North Korea will (a) sign an agreement or   (b) comply with it.

No wonder Kim Jong Il timed this test for October. 

Update:   Lest we forget the man to whom we owe the Agreed Framework, Jimmy Carter reminds us of the adamantine brilliance of his negotiating skills.

But beginning in 2002, the United States branded North Korea as part of an axis of evil, threatened military action, ended the shipments of fuel oil and the construction of nuclear power plants and refused to consider further bilateral talks. In their discussions with me at this time, North Korean spokesmen seemed convinced that the American positions posed a serious danger to their country and to its political regime.

Responding in its ill-advised but predictable way, Pyongyang withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, expelled atomic energy agency inspectors, resumed processing fuel rods and began developing nuclear explosive devices.

Got that?  Predictable, meaning “not responsible for their actions.”  Hey, didn’t you see the signs about looking them directly in the eyes?  Well, if there’s one thing you can’t  call about Kim Jong Il, it’s predictable.  After all, Carter seems not to have predicted that he’d keep cranking out nukes notwithstanding his agreement to the contrary.

Jimmy and Carter and Kim Il Sung:  undoubtedly history’s single greatest diplomatic mismatch.

Update 2:   Just One Minute takes issue with Carter’s view of history.

* Not that pointless talks are necessarily a bad thing, since they have great cosmetic value, but in such situations, you need a more substantive strategy to pursue separately.