G
Gandalf Grey
Guest
Going Back to North Korea, Hat in Hand
By Robert Scheer
Created Feb 28 2007 - 9:15am
- from Truthdig (posted with permission) [1]
So now it's North Korea's turn to feed at the trough of U.S. economic aid,
as if exploding a nuclear weapon is all that's needed to prove a nation's
peaceful intentions. Of course, there is nothing wrong with negotiating with
our enemies rather than weakly blustering at cartoon images of them--I wish
we would do the same in our dealings with Iran--but it would be nice if we
would stop shooting ourselves in the foot first.
Five years and an outlaw nuke test after President Bush blew up the peace
process with Pyongyang so he could look tougher than his predecessor, he
capitulated completely earlier this month in accepting a negotiating
framework that tacitly accepts the huge surge in the communist state's
estimated nuclear arsenal. Bush blinked big-time. The carrot replaced the
stick, and that is a good thing, carrying the hope that through diplomacy
North Korea will end its isolation and follow the modernizing path of
communist China. But six years of presidential haranguing about rogue
regimes derailed previous efforts at arms control, allowing the dangerously
unstable North Korea to join the nuclear club.
In particular, Bush's rejection of the Clinton administration's alleged
pandering to North Korea gave that country's erratic rulers a believable
rationale to cut the international monitoring seals on their super-dangerous
plutonium stores. Now Bush has had to go back, hat and heating oil in hand,
to beg for a restart to negotiations with a nuked-up Pyongyang, which now is
in an exponentially better bargaining position.
Distracted by the occupation of Iraq, a country that had no functioning
nuclear weapons program or stockpiles of plutonium, and obsessed with regime
change in Iran, a country with a very primitive nuclear program, the Bush
team has decided to live with the North Korean bomb. Indeed, Bush has agreed
to remove North Korea from the list of nations sponsoring terrorism--not
because North Korea's dictator abandoned his nuclear ambitions but rather
because he achieved them.
The deal with Korea, involving massive economic aid and political
legitimacy, is basically the one negotiated by the Clinton administration
back in 1994 that was shrilly derided by the Bushites until last week. It is
also probably a smart move, a la Richard Nixon's historic trip to Beijing,
to attempt to end North Korea's dangerous isolation.
What was not smart was jettisoning the agreement Clinton's secretary of
state, Madeleine Albright, had worked out to prevent North Korea from
developing and testing a bomb in the first place. By that standard, we will
only have peace with Iran, or Cuba, after it possesses the ability to kill
lots and lots and lots of us--a lesson not likely to be ignored by other
"rogue nations."
After all, this is an administration that lifted the sanctions on Pakistan
the U.S. imposed after that nation developed a nuclear arsenal. Why?
Ostensibly because we needed Pakistan's support in "the war on terror" after
9/11. But aid in that war has not been forthcoming, as Bush and Vice
President Dick Cheney have just conceded in rare condemnations of Pakistan.
Taliban supporters are thriving in the Pakistan-Afghan border region that
Pakistan's dictator abandoned to local tribal chiefs sympathetic to the
militants.
Similarly, Pakistan has never been held to account for allowing its "father
of the Islamic bomb," A.Q. Khan, to spread nuclear bomb technology and
expertise to rogue regimes--including North Korea and Iran. Khan remains
protected under house arrest, off-limits to U.S. intelligence agents seeking
to interview him. No water-boarding for him, unlike the thousands of
never-charged prisoners that the United States has ordered tortured around
the world who couldn't tell the interrogator the difference between uranium
and plutonium.
The proliferation of nuclear weapons is, far and away, the main threat to
the survival of the human species on this planet, and yet President Bush has
treated the problem not as a real scourge but rather a wonderful opportunity
to pursue a totally unrelated agenda. Whether that agenda centers on his own
political ambitions, the stated neoconservative fantasy of securing the
Mideast for Israel or a bizarre interest in coaxing the biblical prophecy of
Armageddon is a subject for debate.
What is not debatable is the recklessness of a policy that trivializes the
danger of nuclear annihilation. Foreign policy hawks love to talk about
"punishing" North Korea, but really the only measure of success in our
dealings with that economic basket case of a nation is simple: Does it make
the United States and the world safer? On this front, negotiating rather
than bullying is the sensible course, and such a strategy must now be
applied to Iran as well.
_______
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
By Robert Scheer
Created Feb 28 2007 - 9:15am
- from Truthdig (posted with permission) [1]
So now it's North Korea's turn to feed at the trough of U.S. economic aid,
as if exploding a nuclear weapon is all that's needed to prove a nation's
peaceful intentions. Of course, there is nothing wrong with negotiating with
our enemies rather than weakly blustering at cartoon images of them--I wish
we would do the same in our dealings with Iran--but it would be nice if we
would stop shooting ourselves in the foot first.
Five years and an outlaw nuke test after President Bush blew up the peace
process with Pyongyang so he could look tougher than his predecessor, he
capitulated completely earlier this month in accepting a negotiating
framework that tacitly accepts the huge surge in the communist state's
estimated nuclear arsenal. Bush blinked big-time. The carrot replaced the
stick, and that is a good thing, carrying the hope that through diplomacy
North Korea will end its isolation and follow the modernizing path of
communist China. But six years of presidential haranguing about rogue
regimes derailed previous efforts at arms control, allowing the dangerously
unstable North Korea to join the nuclear club.
In particular, Bush's rejection of the Clinton administration's alleged
pandering to North Korea gave that country's erratic rulers a believable
rationale to cut the international monitoring seals on their super-dangerous
plutonium stores. Now Bush has had to go back, hat and heating oil in hand,
to beg for a restart to negotiations with a nuked-up Pyongyang, which now is
in an exponentially better bargaining position.
Distracted by the occupation of Iraq, a country that had no functioning
nuclear weapons program or stockpiles of plutonium, and obsessed with regime
change in Iran, a country with a very primitive nuclear program, the Bush
team has decided to live with the North Korean bomb. Indeed, Bush has agreed
to remove North Korea from the list of nations sponsoring terrorism--not
because North Korea's dictator abandoned his nuclear ambitions but rather
because he achieved them.
The deal with Korea, involving massive economic aid and political
legitimacy, is basically the one negotiated by the Clinton administration
back in 1994 that was shrilly derided by the Bushites until last week. It is
also probably a smart move, a la Richard Nixon's historic trip to Beijing,
to attempt to end North Korea's dangerous isolation.
What was not smart was jettisoning the agreement Clinton's secretary of
state, Madeleine Albright, had worked out to prevent North Korea from
developing and testing a bomb in the first place. By that standard, we will
only have peace with Iran, or Cuba, after it possesses the ability to kill
lots and lots and lots of us--a lesson not likely to be ignored by other
"rogue nations."
After all, this is an administration that lifted the sanctions on Pakistan
the U.S. imposed after that nation developed a nuclear arsenal. Why?
Ostensibly because we needed Pakistan's support in "the war on terror" after
9/11. But aid in that war has not been forthcoming, as Bush and Vice
President Dick Cheney have just conceded in rare condemnations of Pakistan.
Taliban supporters are thriving in the Pakistan-Afghan border region that
Pakistan's dictator abandoned to local tribal chiefs sympathetic to the
militants.
Similarly, Pakistan has never been held to account for allowing its "father
of the Islamic bomb," A.Q. Khan, to spread nuclear bomb technology and
expertise to rogue regimes--including North Korea and Iran. Khan remains
protected under house arrest, off-limits to U.S. intelligence agents seeking
to interview him. No water-boarding for him, unlike the thousands of
never-charged prisoners that the United States has ordered tortured around
the world who couldn't tell the interrogator the difference between uranium
and plutonium.
The proliferation of nuclear weapons is, far and away, the main threat to
the survival of the human species on this planet, and yet President Bush has
treated the problem not as a real scourge but rather a wonderful opportunity
to pursue a totally unrelated agenda. Whether that agenda centers on his own
political ambitions, the stated neoconservative fantasy of securing the
Mideast for Israel or a bizarre interest in coaxing the biblical prophecy of
Armageddon is a subject for debate.
What is not debatable is the recklessness of a policy that trivializes the
danger of nuclear annihilation. Foreign policy hawks love to talk about
"punishing" North Korea, but really the only measure of success in our
dealings with that economic basket case of a nation is simple: Does it make
the United States and the world safer? On this front, negotiating rather
than bullying is the sensible course, and such a strategy must now be
applied to Iran as well.
_______
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
