What? That Is Your Day Job? (Part 2)

David Albright, who has spent the last several years discounting the evidence of North Korea’s nuclear cheating and cheerleading for diplomatic giveaways to Kim Jong Il, has joined the coalition of the willing.  Sort of:

“North Korea’s thrown something in our face that we have to deal with now and it could have tremendous ramifications for the ability to stop proliferation in the future,” said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a nuclear disarmament think tank. The former arms inspector said international failure to respond resolutely could embolden Iran in its suspected quest for a nuclear bomb, but also could see nuclear-armed Pakistan mimic the North in a test that might provoke India in turn. [Reuters, Paul Eckert]

Read on, and you’ll see just what resolute action Albright would take:  he’d send Jimmy Carter!

Update:   Deep in my archive of half-finished posts, I stumbled upon this Washington Post op-ed by Albright.  As Albright wrote it in January 2008, North Korea had already begun reneging on Agreed Framework II, had missed its agreed deadline to give us a full disclosure of its nuclear programs, had balked at verification, and had been caught building a nuclear reactor in Syria.  Despite all of this, Albright assured us that North Korea was disarming in good faith.  Money quote:

The finger-wagging, told-you-so naysayers in and out of the Bush administration should take a deep breath. There is no indication that North Korea is backing away from its commitments to disable key nuclear facilities and every reason to expect this process to unfold slowly, with North Korea taking small, incremental steps in return for corresponding steps from the United States and others in the six-party discussions.  [David Albright, Washington Post]

For new readers, Albright has left comments here accusing me of attacking him “unfairly” and “slandering” him — by pointing out flaws in his arguments — but he wouldn’t answer questions or address specific points of my criticism of his arguments.

Look:  I don’t want to belabor a disagreement that shouldn’t be personal.  I don’t question Albright’s technical or scientific qualifications.  Unfortunately, he yields too often to the temptation to stray into discussions about policy and diplomacy, where the merit of one’s views is much less about qualifications and much more about good judgment, common sense, and an intellectually honest reading of the facts (I do not accept that being invited to North Korea by its commissars to hear and carry their messages is a qualification; it may suggest that the North Koreans think they’ve spotted an easy mark).  Too often, newspapers accept Albright as an expert in those other fields, too, but I’d only say to those who are reading that Albright’s record for advocating effective diplomacy — much less for for predicting North Korea’s intentions accurately — speaks for itself.