‘Peace in Our Time!’ Updates

[Updated below] As I write, diplomats from five nations have decided to stick around at a resort somewhere near Beijing for a couple more days, probably for many exciting hours of CNN International, while North Korea decides whether it’s interested in talking about uranium. Contrary to reports I’d read yesterday, no one is flying home just yet, but no one expects anything to get done this week, either.

The holdup — which U.S. negotiator Chris Hill and the New York Times had said was resolved — was the release of $25 million in North Korean accounts that in large measure contain the proceeds of illegal activity. In a thinly veiled bow to UNSCR 1718, we insisted on putting this money into a special account for “humanitarian” and “educational” purposes, though everyone knows Kim Jong Il will divert the money, perhaps for a new batch of those nifty Omega watches he likes to give his prune-faced generals every Hannukah.

Incidentially, some reporters happened to ask John Bolton what he thinks of this:

”I think this is a mistake,” Bolton told reporters after a speech in New York. ”The idea that China’s now going to guarantee that North Korea spends this money on humanitarian programs gives me about as much confidence as what the North Koreans did with the U.N.’s money.” [Kyodo]

Ouch.

Sympathetic as I may be to that view, that ship sailed when we agreed to “resolve” the Banco Delta funds issue as a part of this deal. I’m not opposed in principle to linking the issues; after all, financial pressure is one of the strongest forms of pressure we have now to disarm North Korea. I am opposed to forfeiting that pressure without achieving our goals: the normalization of North Korea’s behavior, a timetable for achieving it, and a robust inspection program to verify it.

As you might have guessed, North Korea’s stall tactics have won no friends. Says Chris Hill:

“While these forms have been filed out and faxes sent, while that is going on, our nuclear talks have not made progress. That has been the real opportunity cost to this.”

Here’s South Korea’s Chun Yung-Woo:

“I don’t know why we should waste our time waiting for the obstacle to be cleared.”

More from Hill:

We all have jobs to do. Waiting around for some forms to be filled out is not usually in our job descriptions,” US envoy Christopher Hill told reporters after spending the first part of Wednesday in his hotel room.

“You cannot expect these large delegations to sit around while it is being sorted out.” [Reuters]

What is being sorted out, exactly? For one thing, whose accounts these really are. On closer inspection, some of those named as account holders turn out to be either dead or non-residents of Macau. That does tend to slow things down.

So, to sum up where we stand: Kim Jong Il gets all of his laundered money back and will probably be able to spend it however he wants. His mouthpiece still refuses to even discuss disarming or the release of hostages, and the diplomats of four of the world’s great powers (and South Korea) are in their hotel rooms playing Starcraft and drawing pay while they wait to see if he’ll change his mind.

See also: David Sanger of the New York Times can’t quite conceal his celebration of the departure of the State Department’s last conservative of importance, Robert Joseph. Joseph specifically resigned because Agreed Framework 2.0 will “prolong the survival of a North Korean government he has publicly called ‘criminal’ and ‘morally abhorrent’ while failing to require it to give up the weapons it has already produced.” I challenge anyone to make the case that (a) he’s wrong about any of that, or (b) that Joseph’s vision of diplomacy doesn’t have a far better record of accomplishment than Chris Hill’s:

Inside the White House, he drafted a new policy for aggressively pursuing trade in unconventional weapons, one that goes far beyond export controls. It became the “Proliferation Security Initiative,” a plan now supported by both Democrats and Republicans that creates a web of countries that use their national laws to cooperate in intercepting shipments.

When the new effort hit early pay dirt in the fall of 2003, intercepting a cargo ship bound for Libya with nuclear centrifuges built by Abdul Qadeer Khan’s nuclear smuggling network, it led to Mr. Joseph’s biggest success: working with American and British intelligence officials to persuade Libya to give up its nuclear program, which helped break up Mr. Khan’s network.

At moments like this, I can almost enjoy reading Chris Hill bitching about all the time he’s wasting in his hotel room while the North Koreans deliberately make a complete fool of him. It’s not as if Hill didn’t bring this on himself — and the rest of us — by disregarding Joseph’s advice. (hat tip)

Update 2: But we’re making the necessary preparations to ship the first installment of fuel oil anyway — just as I’d predicted. The fuel oil should be shipped as early as next week.