16 December 2009

WHAT IS IT WITH THESE PEOPLE? When asked whether he’d carried a letter from the President to Kim Jong Il, Special Envoy Stephen Bosworth misled reporters:

Bosworth artfully evaded reporters’ queries about the letter in Seoul last week, after he left North Korea. Asked whether he had brought a letter, he sidestepped the question, saying: “As for a message to the North Koreans from President Obama, in effect, I am the message.” Reporters in Asia then reported that he had denied he had carried a letter. [Washington Post, Glenn Kessler]

Whatever happened to “no comment?” On one hand, it’s hard to criticize the idea of sending a letter if you haven’t seen the content. On the other hand, given the recent brazenness of Kim Jong Il’s behavior, I can’t see what message Kim Jong Il is really prepared to listen to that’s worth sending, that couldn’t be sent more effectively by re-adding North Korea to the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The only good I can really see in this is the possibility that the very fact that some letter was sent might shut Selig Harrison up for another ten minutes, which I suppose is probably worth something. No word, by the way, on what the letter said, but in light of this Administration’s priorities, you can bet “please close down your death camps” wasn’t in there.

BANGKOK ARMS SEIZURE UPDATES: The Examiner has more speculation and analysis here. I’m still betting on Iran being the most likely destination, but I don’t doubt that North Korea would sell to anyone. Yet despite this, the North Koreans reportedly demanded to Stephen Bosworth that the U.S. lift U.N. sanctions. While I doubt we have the unilateral authority to do that, the default position of most non-Western European governments is to ignore the U.N. anyway. That’s pretty much how things worked out with UNSCR 1695 and 1718, and if the United States doesn’t constantly push other countries to enforce UNSCR 1874, the same will happen to it. As always, Claudia Rosett’s take is worth reading.

GUUS HIDDINK WON’T COACH the North Korean soccer team, just in case you give a rat’s ass.

ANGELINA JOLIE IS RIGHT about President Obama and his Darfur policy. I don’t know when I’ve seen any administration — save George H.W. Bush, maybe — make human rights for non-terrorists a lower priority than this one has. I’d add that North Korea could badly use its own Angelina Jolie or George Clooney. And how that George W. Bush isn’t around to confuse their moral compasses anymore, maybe there’s some chance there will be.