Curb Your Enthusiasm

See if you can spot any patterns here. Let’s begin on a very high note:

McClatchy News, Feb. 7: The U.S. envoy to international talks on the North Korean nuclear crisis said Thursday that he was optimistic negotiators were nearing a breakthrough.

Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Feb. 7, Headline: North Korea: A Breakthrough at hand as talks resume today? [OFK note: at least they didn’t say “peace is at hand.”]

NY Times, Feb. 7: The long-stalled six-way talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program will resume here Thursday amid tentative signs that a breakthrough may be in the offing in a diplomatic process that seemed shattered four months ago when North Korea tested its first nuclear bomb.

Reuters, Feb. 7: A breakthrough deal at six-party nuclear talks in Beijing this week may hinge on the fate of a sum of money equal to half a percent of North Korea’s total foreign trade that has been blocked in a city far from the action.

CBC News, Feb 8, Headline: Possible breakthrough in North Korea nuclear talks

AP, Feb. 8: There may be a breakthrough in efforts to get the North Koreans to give up their nuclear ambitions.

AP, Feb. 9: The U.S. envoy to talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program said Friday that a Chinese draft proposal on initial steps for disarming Pyongyang is encountering resistance, indicating obstacles to an imminent breakthrough.

Uh oh.

NY Times, Feb. 9: North Korea and the United States, the key players in talks that also include China, Japan, South Korea and Russia, had held fruitful private meetings last month in Berlin, and there was hope for a breakthrough at the six-way talks.

Agence France-Presse, Feb. 9: NORTH Korea may take the first steps towards ending its nuclear weapons programme under a rare draft accord being hammered out today by envoys to six-nation disarmament talks in Beijing…. On arrival in Beijing Yesterday, North Korea’s Kim had raised hopes of a breakthrough when he said he was prepared to talk about recommitting to the September 2005 agreement, but the onus rested on the US.

McClatchy News, Feb. 9: The U.S. envoy to international talks on the North Korean nuclear crisis said Thursday that he was optimistic negotiators were nearing a breakthrough.

The Guardian, Feb. 9: The US was poised for an embarrassing climbdown as a new round of six-nation talks over North Korea opened yesterday, the best hope for a breakthrough since the standoff over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme began in 2002.

Mainichi News, Feb. 9: North Korea’s comments came Friday amid signs of obstacles to a possible breakthrough at six-nation talks on its nuclear disarmament, with the top U.S. envoy saying delegations had raised concerns about a China-proposed draft agreement under which the North would halt its nuclear weapons program in exchange for energy aid.

Korea Herald, Feb. 10: All delegates, including even North Koreans, were upbeat about prospects for a breakthrough.

Korea Times, Feb. 10: [South Korean delegate Chun Young-Woo] added that Saturday’s meeting is crucial to a breakthrough as the concerned parties are struggling to address several sticking issues.

Agence France-Presse, Feb. 10, Headline: N. Korea Deal Deemed Imminent; Text: The potential breakthrough this week comes after North Korea conducted its first atomic test in October last year, an event it said confirmed its status as a global nuclear power but which also drew United Nations sanctions.

Reuters, Feb. 10: “I think it’s time to wrap this up and get moving and I hope the other participants will share this view … We’ve made a lot of progress. It’s progress that’s consolidated. We’ve got this one issue — we ought to try to wrap this issue up,” Hill said…. South Korean envoy Chun Yung-woo said the sticking point was not over how much energy to give the North but how any energy and economic aid is “tied to the scope and speed of the actions of denuclearisation” to be taken by the North…. “It’s a bit unreasonable to expect there’ll be a breakthrough today,” Chun said…. Other diplomats have said the row is over the incentives Pyongyang would receive in return for shutting down its Yongbyon nuclear plant, which makes plutonium usable in nuclear weapons.

AP, Feb. 11: “The situation remains severe,” Japanese envoy Kenichiro Sasae told reporters late Sunday. He added that North Korea offered no new proposals. South Korean envoy Chun Yung-Woo said the sticking points touch on vital interests of many of the parties. “It’s not a situation where a breakthrough is in sight,” Chun said.

Reuters, Feb. 11: Negotiators from North and South Korea, the United States, Russia, Japan and host China have agreed on most of a plan that would oblige Pyongyang to shut down nuclear activities in return for economic and security assurances. “A breakthrough is not in sight,” South Korea’s Chun Yung-woo told reporters after Sunday’s talks. “Disagreements on contentious issues are narrowing, but we are trying to get them to narrow further,” he said, adding the disputes were about the scope of energy aid “and the scope, pace and range of the North’s actions to denuclearise….” “The North Korean demands are outrageous and incomprehensible by our standards,” [a diplomatic] source told Reuters.

AP, Feb. 11: North Korean demands for large amounts of energy aid bedeviled negotiators trying to reach a deal on dismantling the communist state’s nuclear programs, as plodding negotiations entered a fourth day Sunday. Envoys at the six-nation talks in Beijing have shown rising frustration at North Korea’s intransigence, saying negotiations over the past two days were hanging on a single issue…. However, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov lowered expectations of a breakthrough, saying consensus on how much energy to provide North Korea may be unattainable.

Just to be completely fair, not every lamb followed the flock:

International Herald-Tribune, Feb. 6: U.S. and Chinese experts differed on whether the world should impose tougher sanctions on North Korea, but agreed at a conference on Tuesday that a breakthrough is unlikely in upcoming talks on the North’s nuclear program.

Generally, however, this session of the six-party talks followed the same emotional cycle as the rest of them, slightly amplified perhaps, and it wasn’t difficult to spot the instant when Lucy pulled the football out of Charlie Brown’s way, and the irrational exuberance of the more careful listeners deflated.

At times, all of this coverage seemed to be little more than different arrangements of the same refrigerator magnets. Beneath that, however, the emotions of the various correspondents were fairly transparent.

The American correspondents want a deal — any deal — that would allow them to accuse the Bush Administration of doing no better than the Clinton Administration did in 1994. And perhaps, rightly so.
The Guardian, which all but broke out in celebratory gunfire on 9/11, wants to see America weakened and humilitated. What’s new? They’re so giddy when Americans die, the Army ought to declare them a hostile force under the rules of engagement.
AFP’s coverage is the hallucinogenic anomoly.
The Korean correspondents just want the United States to cave and pay, but they’re capable of blaming North Korea for denying the Americans a face-saving way to get on with that.

Yonhap writes what may become the final word:

Six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program were dragged into a fourth day on Sunday, as negotiators vented increasing frustration at what they believed excessive North Korean demand for energy aid in exchange for its first steps to disarm.

“Excessive” means a demand for 2 million tons of fuel oil — four times the fuel oil they demanded and got in 1994 — plus 2 million kilowatts of electricity per year. At that rate, they’d probably make a tidy profit selling the excess to the Chinese. Hmmm. I wonder how they’d spend that.

Japan’s chief delegate Kenichiro Sasae confirmed that the North’s drastically upped compensation demand is a single last remaining hurdle to this round of talks which began on Thursday. Other countries involved include the U.S., South Korea, host China and Russia.

“The issue is energy aid, rather than economic assistance,” Japan’s Kyodo News Agency quoted Sasae as telling reporters as he began his Sunday schedule. “The problem is that North Korea has excessive expectations about this, and unless it reconsiders this issue, an agreement will be difficult.”

This mostly-shared, now-deflated exuberance is exactly the same kind that a fastidiously neutral reporter wouldn’t think to show over, say, an American victory on the battlefield. Ditto the credulous belief in a “breakthrough,” which seems irrational in light of 50-plus years of experience negotiating with the North Koreans. How many reporters would invest that kind of hope in “the surge?”

At this point, I’m required to note that the planes haven’t taken off yet, so I suppose anything is still possible.