Wobble Watch: Robert Gates on North Korea

A few links that may interest (or depress) you.  In 2004, Gates teamed up with Zbigniew Brzezinski to call for direct bilateral talks with Iran.  Procedurally, you can’t say that we gain much by letting the Europeans do it for us, since we certainly don’t share a common set of interests or base beliefs with Europe.  Substantively, I don’t see what you can gain by talking to a man as hell-bent as Ahmedinejad.  Especially if we show weakness in Iraq, and if we take all options of pressure or force  them off the table, I can’t see why Iran has a motive to give us anything.  Not Korea related, but scary for how naive it is.

On North Korea, Gates has a mixed record.  Back in February of 1992, he accused the North Koreans of cheating on the Agreed Framework before the Agreed Framework, also known as the Inter-Korean Denuclearization Agreement.  I can’t find any record that he had the same to say about the Agreed Framework itself, once it became obvious that the North was cheating on that one.

In 1995, Gates  chaired a panel reviewing conclusions in the National Intelligence Estimate on missile threats to the United States.  They estimated that the North was still years away from having a missile that could threaten the United States — at least 15 or 20 years.  In fact, they tested the Taepodong I over Japan  in 1998, and unsuccessfully tested the Taepodong II just 11 years after Gates’s conclusion, meaning:  panel’s views didn’t hold up well  over time.

At least he isn’t going to the State Department.  But I suspect that Condi Rice and Nicholas Burns will find common ground with him.  It’s not good news.