Search Results for “Obama not ready”

September 14, 2009

Another Nuke Test?

On Saturday, I had coffee with a very well-connected South Korean friend, who suggested in passing that North Korea might respond to this-or-that sanction with another nuke test. After having expostulated for the next 45 seconds about why such a move wouldn’t further North Korea’s interests at this time, I think I now understand why my friend just sat there and smiled while I yammered on: According to a high-level source in North Korea, Kim Jong-Il instructed at the meeting...

Proliferation/WMD

August 27, 2009

Preventing Another “Three Kingdoms” Era

In The National Interest, Michael Green, the NSC’s primary Asia advisor during President Bush’s first term outlines a series of scary stages that he thinks are approaching rapidly as Kim Jong Il withers away and North Korea dies with him. The lines of fracture in such an opaque regime are extremely difficult to predict, of course, but most of Green’s analysis makes sense to me. First, Green says the current regime can’t be stabilized in the long term, and that...

Kremlinology/Reconstruction/Regime Change

June 29, 2009

Obama Forms Team Plan B

The Washington Post is reporting that President Obama is forming an inter-agency team, much like the Illicit Activities Initiative that David Asher headed in G.W. Bush’s first term, to coordinate sanctions against North Korea: The White House is forming an interagency team to coordinate sanctions efforts against North Korea with other nations, senior administration officials said yesterday. The team will be led by Philip S. Goldberg, a former ambassador to Bolivia who is slated to leave for China in the...

Diplomacy/Money Laundering/Sanctions/U.S. Politics/Washington Views

June 18, 2009

David Sanger: Obama Tired of Kim Jong Il’s B.S.

Regardless of what you think of N.Y. Times correspondent David Sanger or his paper, Sanger is rightly known for the quality of his access to the White House, regardless of who occupies it. Here, he reveals the administration’s thinking about North Korea: The decision to confront North Korea with overwhelming pressure — designed to bring its shipping and financial transactions to a virtual standstill — is based on the conclusion that re-entering negotiations to buy the dismantlement of the country’s...

Diplomacy/Washington Views

June 7, 2009

Is Barack Obama Finding His Inner Churchill?

[Update: Clinton hints at putting North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, and calls the charges against Laura Ling and Euna Lee “absolutely without merit or foundation.” Does that mean Clinton’s best information is that they were inside China?] I continue to be gleefully amazed by the toughness and seriousness of Obama’s words on North Korea. Now let’s see if they translate into effective action. In his young presidency, Obama has already jettisoned some of the...

"United" Nations/Ling/Lee Incident/Sanctions/Washington Views

June 5, 2009

Obama Gears Up for “Plan B;” John Kerry Blocks Terror Re-Listing

I really don’t know what to make of this. A young, inexperienced president, one whom the North Koreans arguably endorsed, comes into office showing every sign of being easier meat than Lance Bass in Riker’s Island. The North Koreans, true to Joe Biden’s prophetic gaffe, and with their exquisite sensitivity to American weakness, don’t even let the man get inaugurated before they begin the noisy repudiation of every agreed framework, U.N. resolution, and armistice they can stuff into a shredder....

"United" Nations/China/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/NK Crime/NK Economics/Proliferation/Sanctions/U.S. Politics

June 4, 2009

A Volunteer on a Fool’s Errand: Leon Sigal Defends North Korea from Barack Obama

Let us bow our heads and give thanks for the levity we receive from Leon V. Sigal, whom I first draped in clownish heraldry when he denied the very possibility of North Korean nuclear assistance to Syria … until he didn’t. I can see how a professional apologist for North Korea — there’s a booth for that at career day, you know — might be in a contrite mood, but then, we often make the mistake of imputing reasonable behavior...

Fiskings

May 14, 2009

Obama Cabinet Watch: Still No Hint of a Coherent NK Policy

Perhaps “ready on day one” was setting the bar a bit too high. I dare anyone to find coherence within the dizzying crossfire of U.S. policy statements on North Korea this week. Special Envoy Stephen “Bud” Bosworth just returned from a trip to China, Japan, South Korea, and Russia to “convince the North to come back to the negotiating table” and “take the pulse” of the other four nations that supply the aid that sustains Kim’s misrule. Our diplomats never...

Diplomacy

May 4, 2009

N. Korea: Obama Just Like Bush!

Someone still isn’t feeling the hope and change: North Korea blasted U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday as no different from his predecessor in trying to “stifle” countries that are uncooperative with the U.S., referring to Washington’s move to punish Pyongyang’s rocket launch. [….] “With nothing can the U.S. justify such illegal provocation as forcing the UNSC to table the issue of the DPRK’s (North Korea) launch of a satellite for peaceful purposes and issue ‘a presidential statement,’” the North’s...

"United" Nations/Diplomacy/Japan/Missiles/Proliferation/U.S. Politics

May 2, 2009

Obama Policy Watch: Reality Sinking In?

There have been several signs this week that the Obama Administration is reaching an early recognition of the realities that eluded the Bush Administration for most of its two terms. Recent statements from the new administration reflect a growing acknowledgment that unconditional aid and easy concessions have failed as tools for the “management” of Kim Jong Il. That acknowledgment would not have been possible without the inspiration of Kim Jong Il. I will give you some quotes, and then I’ll...

U.S. Politics/Washington Views

April 20, 2009

The “Realism” Fad, Truth in Labeling, The Obama Doctrine, and Godot

Jeff Jacoby asks how many Democrats still believe in the moral superiority of democracy. Nowadays, I wonder. I frequently hear it said, especially by adherents of the fad mislabeled as “realism,” that nations have the “right” to choose their own way. The problem with this argument is that invariably, “nations” really means a tiny clique of thugs and oligarchs with the keys to the helicopter gunships, who exercise that “right” by proxy and do the choosing for everyone else. I’ve...

Geopolitics

April 5, 2009

What President Obama Should (But Won’t) Do About North Korea’s Missile Test

[Update: The nations are not united. The U.N. Security Council fails to agree on the text of a very angry letter. You don’t say.] [Afterthought: So can we conclude that the Obama Administration views even “soft power” as excessive force?] Our Words Mean Nothing Even for North Korea, today’s missile test was an especially flagrant, telegraphed, and premeditated provocation. Whether the missile carried a satellite or not, to launch it was a clear violation of two U.N. resolutions. That the...

"United" Nations/Appeasement/Missiles

March 30, 2009

One Man’s “Bargaining Chip” Is Another Man’s Hostage

Update: Uh oh: Two American journalists detained at North Korea’s border with China two weeks ago will be indicted and tried, “their suspected hostile acts” already confirmed, Pyongyang’s state-run news agency said Tuesday. The Korean Central News Agency report did not say when a trial might take place, but said preparations to indict the Americans were under way as the investigation continues. “The illegal entry of U.S. reporters into the DPRK and their suspected hostile acts have been confirmed by...

Media Criticism/Refugees/Terrorism (NK)

February 24, 2009

Dear Mrs. Clinton: Pyongyang Will Not Be Triangulated

For a moment, leave aside what we think Hillary Clinton’s goals for her recent Asia visit should have been. For most of us, that is just an exercise in catharsis anyway. Ask yourself what Mrs. Clinton’s subjective goals were. One certainly must have been to improve our frayed alliances with South Korea (frayed by Roh Moo Hyun’s America-bashing populism) and Japan (frayed by George W. Bush’s betrayal on the abduction issue), and to show both nations that America is a...

Diplomacy

February 8, 2009

Christopher Hill, Obama’s Choice to Be Iraq Ambassador, Showed Poor Judgment and Dishonesty as N. Korea Negotiator

I guess we can add another name to the list of those who have little use for Christopher Hill, the front-runner to be President Obama’s next ambassador to Iraq: General Anthony Zinni, the former top U.S. commander in the Middle East, said the Obama administration offered him the Baghdad job late last month but withdrew the appointment without explanation, apparently in favor of a veteran diplomat, Christopher Hill. With Zinni fuming in undiplomatic fashion about the way he was treated,...

Diplomacy/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. Politics/Washington Views

February 5, 2009

Obama Policy Watch, Plus: Chris Hill Reminisces on Failure

With most of the major players in Obama’s cabinet selected, the question turns to what sort of policies we’ll see during this administration. The shape of those policies is already being tested by North Korea’s state terrorism against South Korea, its threat to test an ICBM — in flagrant violation of two U.N. resolutions — and its continuing repudiation of its 2007 disarmament commitments. So far, the preponderance of evidence suggests that the Obama Administration lacks a coherent plan for...

Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks

December 12, 2008

On North Korea, Bush has one last chance not to go out with a whimper.

In several ways, it would be a mistake to make too much of the New York Times’s declaration of the “collapse” of Agreed Framework 2.0, a/k/a the Not Quite Agreed Framework. The Times’s coverage of this story has never been particularly good, and its editorials have been ridiculously inconsistent. Clearly, The Times’s loathing of Bush did not dwell easily with its approval of Bush’s new willingness to excuse North Korea from every standard of human civilization. The Times saying so...

Appeasement/Diplomacy/Media Criticism/Six-Party Talks

November 21, 2008

Obama Cabinet Looking Surprisingly Centrist and Responsible

The L.A. Times reports that Obama is seriously considering either Hillary Clinton or Richard Holbrooke for State and retaining the effective Robert Gates at Defense. We are already hearing the first sorrowful wailing from those for whom the highest form of patriotism is the emotional investment in America’s defeat and dimunition, in a way that is only coincidentally similar to the patriotism of its enemies. At least one of them had the deficiency of judgment to actually believe that Dennis...

Appeasement/Diplomacy/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics

Search Results for: Obama not ready