What the Bush Administration Really Thinks About ‘The Spat’

Commenter Michael Sheehan dropped a link to a must-read by former senior NSC advisor Michael Green, on Roh’s bumbling open-air negotiation with President Bush last week. Green also thinks that Roh knew what he was doing, that he did it for domestic political reasons, and that he set his own goals back in the process. In other words, typical Roh:

Watching the exchange later on YouTube.com, I felt great sympathy for my former national security colleagues in both countries, since I’ve also had to “explain” apparent gaps between the leaders on more than one occasion. However, this one was the biggest I had ever seen and veteran White House reporters knew what they were watching.

The exchange over the peace treaty issue reveals how unpredictable Roh is in these summit meetings. Before going in front of the press, the leaders and their staffs usually huddle to anticipate any questions and to put the best possible spin on their meeting. That rarely works with Roh. I cannot think of another foreign leader ever pressing the president of the United States to “clarify” a position in front of the press in this way. There is a certain charm in a head of state who will not be scripted, I have to admit, but in this case it was hard not to suspect that Roh had an objective in mind and was not merely extemporizing.

What was Roh’s objective? The obvious answer would be that he wanted to extract a public commitment from Bush on delinking the peace treaty from denuclearization. But if this was Roh’s goal, he set it back with this exchange. [Joongang Ilbo]

You can’t help suspecting that Green was asked to convey this message.

See also:

* Lee Myung Bak is articulating his North Korea policy: massive aid, but not unconditional aid. Interesting, but I’ll wait to see how words translate to actions. More than most politicians before elections, Lee is a man with great ambitions for things that his treasurers can’t afford.