Wobble Watch: Condi Rice Talks Tough, the Pentagon Talks Scary Tough

The Administration is trying to sound tough with the North Koreans, but I’m inherently distrustful of tough talk that comes the week before an election:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday the United States wanted “concrete action” when six-party talks resume on North Korea’s nuclear program.

Rice said the starting point for the talks, which North Korea has boycotted since last November in protest at U.S. financial restrictions, would be to seek implementation of an agreement signed with Pyongyang in September 2005. ….

“They’re going to look for ways to make sure that when we do go back to the table in the six-party talks that the talks really do aim at implementing the agreement that was signed in September of 2005, and that we don’t just go back to talk, that we go back for concrete action,” Rice told radio show host Laura Ingraham, referring to the two diplomats’ mission.

Rice said the talks were resuming under “considerably different circumstances” than before, referring to the U.N. sanctions resolution and China’s backing of punitive measures against North Korea.

“They’re coming back to talks in which China has made it very clear that it will not support North Korea’s behavior,” she added.  “No one has to worry about anybody going wobbly.”

Tough, tough, tough, she says!   There’s just one problem with that “starting point:” the  September 19th agreement  was a  lousy deal  that had no specifics, nothing about verification, a heavy reliance on the nearly-worthless IAEA, and no mention of the uranium enrichment program the North Koreans are still denying (meaning that the North Koreans are still in lie-and-stall mode).  Chris Hill only signed it  under intense pressure from the Chinese and the South Koreas, and while praying ardently to  a Baptist God that the North Koreans would  never actually agree.  I wonder what went through his mind when they signed.  How relieved he must have been when they added a deal-breaking up-front  demand for light water reactors less than a day later. 

The external signs are good, however.  We still seem to be pushing 1718 (text, analysis).

Two senior U.S. State Department officials, Nicholas Burns [a dove]  and Robert Joseph [a hawk], are leaving for Japan, South Korea and China this weekend to discuss new talks with North Korea, as well as the implementation of U.N. sanctions imposed after Pyongyang’s Oct. 9 underground nuclear test.

Who else is going? 

*  Under Secretary Burns and Under Secretary Joseph will be accompanied by William Tobey, Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration; Patricia McNerney, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the International Security and Nonproliferation Bureau; David Stephens, Acting Senior  Director for Counterproliferation Strategy; and Victor Cha, Director of Asian Affairs at the National Security Council. Thomas Christensen, Deputy   Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, will participate in the meetings in Bejing.                               

Funny, I wonder where all the Pentagon people are.  Maybe  they’re busy  with other plans.

The Pentagon has stepped up planning for attacks against North Korea’s nuclear program and is bolstering nuclear forces in Asia, said defense officials familiar with the highly secret process.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the accelerated military planning includes detailed programs for striking a North Korean plutonium-reprocessing facility at Yongbyon with special operations commando raids or strikes with Tomahawk cruise missiles or other precision-guided weapons.

The effort, which had been under way for several months, was given new impetus by Pyongyang’s underground nuclear test Oct. 9 and growing opposition to the nuclear program of Kim Jong-il’s communist regime, especially by China and South Korea.

Ulp.   I bet the North Koreans would love to know what we’re planning. 

The officials said one military option calls for teams of Navy SEALs or other special operations commandos to conduct covert raids on Yongbyon’s plutonium-reprocessing facility.

The commandos would blow up the facility to prevent further reprocessing of the spent fuel rods, which provides the material for developing nuclear weapons.

A second option calls for strikes by precision-guided Tomahawk missiles on the reprocessing plant from submarines or ships. The plan calls for simultaneous strikes from various sides to minimize any radioactive particles being carried away in the air.

Planners estimate that six Tomahawks could destroy the reprocessing plant and that it would take five to 10 years to rebuild.

Emphasis:  these are contingency plans.  These are triggers we probably wouldn’t pull unless we thought something very bad — like a transfer to terrorists — were about to happen.  The existence and updating of plans is normal.  The leaking of plans is not.  Since I would not expect this suggestion to be popular one, I certainly don’t expect that it was  leaked for domestic value, although the report didn’t lack for comic relief:

The U.S. Special Operations Command has been planning raids against North Korean nuclear facilities for some time. It has conducted training for joint operations with South Korean special forces as well as unilateral U.S. operations.

Suuuuuure, it has.  The first thing I will predict is that whatever we do won’t involve the South Koreans.  That would  increase the risk that  they’ll be the object of retaliation, and more importantly, we know we  can’t trust the South Koreans not to tell the North Koreans.  I can hardly wait to hear Song Min-Soon‘s reaction to that one.  We know that there’s no love lost between him and Rummy.

Second, if we actually do this, we won’t use commandoes or  ground forces.  North Korea is too hard a target to risk having anyone captured there. 

Third, if we do this, it probably won’t escalate into Korean War 2.  Kim Jong Il pushing things and has the potential to miscalculate, but he’s not suicidal.  We’d also  move many Americans, uniformed and otherwise, out of Kim Jong Il’s impact zone first to deny Kim Jong Il easy retaliatory options.  Be sure not to  catch that next NEO exercise. 

Fourth,  this would probably mean a decisive break in the U.S.-Korean alliance, which has become so estranged by now that the best case scenario is that our ground forces move out, and that we stay at Osan or Kunsan.  Which result we get  probably depends on who ends up  in charge of the two respective countries by early 2009.  If we go through with this, there will be another  explosion of anti-Americanism  that could even put another Roh-style leftist in power in 2007. 

Fifth, we’re  almost certainly  bluffing. 

Finally, this leak means that  we’ve given up on reasoning with the  South Korean  government.  When we ask them to exert nonviolent financial, economic, or diplomatic pressure, even with the unanimous backing of the U.N. Security Council, all we get is  crap like this and this.  The U.S. government could be forgiven for thinking that the South Koreans don’t have the national security interests of the United States at heart.  To a much lesser  degree, the  converse will also begin to  apply. 

Thanks to a reader for forwarding.