The Going-Out-of-Business Summit

I’ve had the better part of a day to wonder what good can come of an eleventh-hour lame-duck summit between Roh Moo Hyun and Kim Jong Il, and one possibility finally did occur to me. When Roh returns to Seoul, a DNA swab of his chin will guarantee us a positive ID of Kim Jong Il’s disfigured corpse once it is recovered from some shallow grave or lamppost. Don’t laugh. He supposedly keeps a few doubles, and how long were we all reading those Hitler-in-Argentina headlines at the supermarket checkout line?

I certainly can’t see anything else good coming of this. Assume Roh makes some kind of substantive agreement with Kim Jong Il. For that matter, assume Kim Jong Il won’t overplay his hand with outlandish demands, and that this meeting even happens. Is there any doubt that any agreement reached would be just as unbalanced a giveaway as Roh’s diplomacy with the North has always been?

Could this possibly amount to anything other than a cynical election-year ploy for a photo op? Roh is deeply unpopular, his party is near the end of a slow and painful process of disintegration, and as of this moment, Uri 2.0 is headed for an electoral trouncing. By what sort of mandate will Roh bind his country to an agreement’s terms? How much influence has he ever wielded over the other parties to the six-party talks? What can he offer Kim Jong Il that he hasn’t already given, asking nothing in return? Very little. Roh is still president, but a few months later, he won’t be, and the new President of Republic of Korea may not agree with the wisdom of being bound by Roh’s final close-out giveaway, though Kim Jong Il is a strict contructionist when it comes to what people agree to give him. It would be the height of irresponsibility for Roh to agree to anything now, but you could say the same of how he financed Kim Jong Il’s nuclear armament or sanctioned his atrocities against the North Korean people. In other words, it would be just what we expect from him.

It’s also questionable how many security benefits this meeting could possibly bring to the peninsula when Roh didn’t even tell the United States that he was contemplating it. Sure, the rumors have been floating around for months, and although Roh’s government has downplayed them, I have no doubt that Sandy Vershbow asked about them. That makes it significant that the United States publicly stated that it had no idea this meeting would take place. The United States may thus feel equally free to disregard whatever comes of this meeting, though it would probably be wise to make a pretense of its relevance for a few months. And in case you’re wondering,

“The president [of the United States] will not be attending. On the other hand, we certainly support the inter-Korean dialogue. It’s a way of contributing to peace and security. The South Korean government has consulted with us on it. It’s an opportunity to continue with the progress made through the six-party talks leading toward denuclearization. As you know there are, under the auspices of the six-party talks, opportunities for bilateral discussions between parties and this fits into that overall model.”

The conservative Joongang Ilbo samples opinion unscientifically and finds it mixed. South Korea has some remarkably gullible people, but this isn’t 2000, and South Koreans have now had seven years to see how little June 2000 mattered, and how much corruption it took to arrange it. This meeting will probably help Uri’s numbers, but I don’t know how much.

There is an opportunity for co-front-runners Park Geun Hye and Lee Myung Bak here, in the unlikely event they’re shrewd enough to take it. A shrewd politician would roll with this punch and ask for a seat at the table. It’s virtually assured that North Korea would issue a shrill refusal and further drive home the cynicism of what Roh and Kim really are trying to pull here. Then, either would be within his or her place to say that if elected president, he or she would not be bound by said cynical lame-duck ploy agreement. If the request is granted, Park or Lee would be in a position to dominate the conversation, look presidential, and show their willingness to be tough but diplomatic. Of the two, Park is more likely to pull it off without screwing it up, but less likely to take the risk of trying it.

Update: Bruce Klingner of the Heritage Foundation adds this detail on just how much Roh kept the U.S. government in the dark here:

South Korea informed the U.S. only a few hours prior to the announcement, signaling that Seoul is freelancing on peninsular issues and not coordinating with its key ally. The head of the National Intelligence Service, South Korea’s intelligence agency, traveled twice to North Korea in secret to engage in preparation negotiations. This is consistent with South Korean actions prior to the 2000 summit, when the Kim Dae-Jung administration alerted the U.S. Embassy in Seoul only one day prior to announcing that summit. [Bruce Klingner, Heritage Web Memo]

Klingner thinks that Washington is genuinely concerned that Roh is being played to our disadvantage. That sounds about right to me. No matter how much the United States sacrifices diplomatically, it will never be enough for us to expect fair dealing from a certain breed of Korean politician.

See also:

* The conventional wisdom can no longer deny that our military is making significant gains in restoring security to the Sunni Triangle, the area where we faced our worst problems until recently, and much of Baghdad. We have now recruited 25,000 Sunni tribesmen to the fight against al-Qaeda. While I see no basis in the headline’s claim that those 25,000 are former insurgents, many undoubtedly are, or the streets of Ramadi wouldn’t be so quiet. The recruits have had their biometric data recorded and have all signed oaths promising not to fight the central government. Even more positive: the actual numbers rise so quickly, the present number is no doubt much higher. Less positive: it’s clearly going to be a chore to integrate those groups into the government’s security system or prevent them from becoming what they’ve always been — sectarian militias. Much sectarian division and distrust will have to be overcome. If the security situtation continues to stabilize, we’ll have a shot at it.

I’m agnostic about whether Iraq can live as a unitary or federal state, though those who propose dividing Iraq as an easy answer are fooling themselves. They should consider how much blood spilled when borders were drawn through Bosnia, or between India and Pakistan. Although I think a loose federal state that gradually strengthens is the best option, I would not be despondent if Iraq were gently divided. That, and the form of Iraq’s government, will have to be up to the Iraqis. Their form of government won’t be democracy as we love it for decades, if ever. For example, Iraq’s government may have to take a hard line toward speech designed to inflame sectarian or ethnic tensions. Our essential security interests are to leave no part of Iraq unstable, anarchic, a terrorist haven, a charnel house, a threat to its neighbors, or an Iranian puppet. Those will be great challenges, but meet them and our essential security objectives will have been achieved. Yes, we could leave behind another ruthless dictatorship, but we’d eventually pay for that. Fail to meet those essential objectives, and disaster will come sooner rather than later.

* North Korea is very worried about a few leaflets being floated across the DMZ in balloons.

* Iran is worried about an American-backed “soft revolution.” I’m worried that by the time any such revolution could succeed, that Iran will be a nuclear power. I’m also very worried about what Iranian-backed Shiite thugs (more) may be plotting in the next two months to try to achieve a “Tet effect” on public opinion here. With AQ apparently a declining force in Iraq, Shiite extremists may now be the greatest threat to our forces, and to their own country’s future.