Search Results for: Obama not ready

June 27, 2008

George W. Bush: A Uniter at Last!

For all the failings of his accord with Kim Jong Il, Bush has made remarkable progress in unwittingly brokering an accord between a liberal Democratic presidential nominee, the House’s most conservative Republicans, and the Republican presidential nominee. To various degrees, all have noted the inadequacy of Kim’s declaration and declared their opposition to de-listing North Korea as a state sponsor of terror unless it permits verfication. (Which it won’t, of course): This is a step forward, and there will be...

Categories Appeasement/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
May 31, 2008

N. Korea to Jack Pritchard: We Won’t Disarm

The U.S. State Department on Friday bashed its former envoy to North Korea, who a day before said Pyongyang is not going to meet Washington’s requirements on denuclearization despite laborious negotiations underway.  [Yonhap] No one should be surprised by anything about  this revelation except the name of the prophet.  This has started a delicious  red-on-red, Mick-on-Keith slap fight  between Pritchard and  the State Department.  Pritchard, of course, was a Clinton holdover, an early defector from the Bush Administration, and a...

Categories Appeasement/Six-Party Talks/Washington Views
April 18, 2008

Rice: Lift Sanctions Now, Disarm and Verify Someday

[Scroll down for a highly significant update.]   U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday that verifying any North Korean nuclear declaration would take time and suggested Washington may drop some sanctions on Pyongyang before this is complete. Separately, a senior U.S. official said an American team would visit North Korea next week to discuss how to verify the “complete and correct” accounting of its nuclear programs that Pyongyang was due to deliver by Dec. 31.  [Reuters, Arshad...

Categories Appeasement/Six-Party Talks
February 25, 2008

The Long National Nightmare Is (Officially) Over

[Update: Now that I’ve read LMB’s inaugural, I’ve posted more detailed comments / ridicule below the fold and the video.] The 17th presidency of Korea started as Lee Myung-bak formally took over presidential authority from former president Roh Moo-hyun at midnight on Monday, with the Bosingak Bell in downtown Seoul tolling the momentous hour. Lee now embarks on a government of pragmatic conservatism after putting an end to the decade-long leftwing rule. [Chosun Ilbo] Judging by Lee’s inaugural address and...

Categories Korean Politics
February 23, 2008

Agreed Framework 2.0: The Shelf Life of Happy Talk

There are probably several good reasons I’ve never really enjoyed a musical except while looking at the lovely France Nuyen, who does not sing. If legacy was its object, Agreed Framework 2.0 won’t be a positive contribution to one. President Bush must know this, or he would have mentioned it in his State of the Union speech. Events turned against the agreement during the last quarter of 2007: specifically Syria, uranium, North Korea’s false declaration, and its failure to give...

Categories Proliferation/Six-Party Talks
January 26, 2008

Fox: White House May Accept Incomplete N. Korean Declaration

“Foreign diplomatic sources” have told Fox News that Chris Hill has floated the idea of accepting a declaration that omits information about North Korea’s proliferation — to Syria, for  instance —  or its suspected uranium enrichment programs. With North Korea almost a month overdue on its obligation to provide a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear programs and materiel, the Bush administration — under increasing pressure from American conservatives to take a harder line with Pyongyang, or abandon the...

Categories Appeasement/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks
January 19, 2008

Gridlock and infighting stalk collapse of Agreed Framework 2.0

You could  write the epitaph for the President Bush’s North Korea policies in six words:  There are worse things than gridlock.  Now that Agreed Framework 2.0 has reached its failure point  and not even  sympathetic media  can still deny it, the New York Times reports that the same  old factions have formed up  to battle about the fruitlessness of dealing with Kim Jong Il.  With North Korea sending signals that it may be trying to wait out Mr. Bush’s time...

Categories Google Earth
December 21, 2007

U-Tubed, Part 2

[Part 1] An honest appraisal of this new discovery means that those of us who are skeptical of AF 2.0 should grudgingly admit that it has produced at least one significant intelligence windfall, even if it was due to a North Korean oversight. Since that oversight will probably land a few people in front of firing squads, AF 2.0 proponents should at least draw the obvious conclusions to which this new intelligence leads. It seems difficult to deny that AF...

Categories Diplomacy/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks
August 14, 2007

For Whom Do They Speak?

It’s not assured that the South Korean public will see President Roh’s going-out-of-business summit for what it is, but if it does not, it won’t be because South Koreans didn’t hear from enough cooler heads about  it.  Richardson presents a broad sampling of reaction from the  (mostly conservative) Korean papers that dominate their country’s market.   Most  share a  skeptical  view and agree on that this is an obvious,  cynical election-year  ploy.  There isn’t anything Roh is proposing to do in...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy
August 4, 2007

Beyond the Drum Circle: Stopping Genocide in the Real World

There is within us some hidden power, mysterious and secret, which keeps us going, keeps us alive, despite the natural law. If we cannot live on what is permitted, we live on what is forbidden. That is no disgrace for us. What is permitted is no more than an agreement, and what is forbidden derives from the same agreement. If we do not accept the agreement, it is not binding on us. And particularly where this forbidden and permitted comes...

Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights/U.S. Law
August 2, 2007

Double Extortion

Yesterday’s report that a hostage  rescue operation was underway in Afghanistan turned out to be premature, but spin operations in Seoul  are sharply accelerating.  In a South Korean election year, it couldn’t be more predicatable that its unpopular  and desperate leftist government, far-left “civic” groups, and certain media are looking for a way to make the  Taliban’s  kidnapping and murder of 23 Korean hostages  America’s fault.  It remains to be seen whether the greater  South Korean public will buy this....

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Terrorism/Iraq
January 31, 2006

SOTU Commentary ‘06

On North Korea, President Bush said very little: “The demands of justice require their freedom as well [specifically naming the people of North Korea, Syria, Burma, and Zimbabwe, among others].” The rhetoric was no more soaring, and certainly no more specific, than anything I’ve heard him say before. I can live without soaring rhetoric for public diplomacy’s sake, but what I can’t forgive is that this president has frittered away six years without forming a forceful or even a particularly...

Categories Uncategorized