Left Flank

On The Charlie Rose Show, David Sanger provides an excellent introduction to a wide range of subjects related to nuclear proliferation, including the recent destruction of DPRK's Yongbyon cooling tower, Iran, A.Q. Khan, and Syria. Phillip Carter has a slightly different read on how the Afghanistan and Iraq wars affected the negotiations with Pyongyang.

What I'm hearing through the grapevine is that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan required so much attention from senior decision makers that it allowed career diplomats and junior political appointees to do their work in East Asia. In essence, the six-party talks needed less attention to work well, so that diplomats and national leaders could get down to business without all of the posturing that goes along with highly public diplomacy. This may or may not be true, but it's an interesting view of how diplomacy can work. I look forward to learning the full story.

Or, in other words, our bench saved our asses! This must be the hardliners' sop to what Sanger heard from the diplomats.

Total Wonkerr's Paul advises patience, as Pyongyang delivers its mandated nuclear declaration:

will North Korea really agree to verification for anything beyond Yongbyon, at least in the near future? I suspect we will either be looking at more than the three phases envisioned, or a «phase three» with quite a few sub-phases to get to that point.

Yet, Leslie Gelb and Winston Lord also caution against being too soft on Pyongyang, and I agree. Tobe fair, this is the anti-Nork and ROK expat line, too. (only with extra fury and scorn added). DPRK Studies obliges with customary rant and links. The hardliners are so apoplectic they would even feature the testimony of a traitor, Charles Jenkins. Robert Koehler calls the outcome a «...steaming load of crap.»

It is one thing to compromise in order to craft an agreement, keep difficult negotiations going and not let the best be the enemy of the good. It is another thing to let the other side breach compromises already reached.

President Bush's remarks at his meeting with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak last weekend suggest that he still may stiffen his stance. We hope so. Our fear, however, is that Bush, feeling the glow of a rare foreign policy accomplishment, may proceed to cement a legacy. He should consider the criticism he would heap upon his successor if he or she were to ink such a deal.

The two of us can hardly be counted as conservative die-hards opposing deals with Pyongyang. We believe that Washington and its allies are rightly committed to exploring even the remotest chance that Pyongyang might give up its nuclear weapons. While reaching for that larger goal, our negotiators can seek to cap North Korea's nuclear inventory and head off proliferation.

We oppose both abandoning the September 2005 agreement and allowing Pyongyang to eviscerate it. Better to let the talks continue than to make one-sided concessions. Better to sharpen North Korean compliance or—failing that—to string out our own.

Bush can sustain international unity by making clear that his goal is to hold Pyongyang to its 2005 commitments. This is the only way to preserve American credibility and bargaining leverage. It is also the only way to maintain political support in Washington for these difficult negotiations.

This is the legacy Bush should bequeath to his successor.

Westhawk trumps all with canny geopolitical insight. After flirting with the notion, that the Bush administration is pursuing vainly its historical legacy, Westhawk highlights the PRC-US relationship that's more important than Washington's with Pyongyang (but, as I have argued, the nuclear non-proliferation regime):

The North Korean regime has been a troublemaker for decades, and continues to be, if the allegations concerning the now-destroyed Syrian plutonium reactor are correct. We should expect North Korea to continue to be a troublemaker in the future; extortion and noxious weapon sales are the only sources of hard currency for the regime.

Yet by making this deal with North Korea, the Bush administration has taken pressure off the regime and extended its life. By extending its life, the U.S. has extended the period during which the North Koreans will be able to cause trouble for the U.S. and its allies.

If this is the case, why did the Bush administration make this deal?

End-of-term vanity might be one explanation. A more substantive reason might have to do with China. A collapse of the North Korean regime would immediately bring trouble to China. China does not like it when North Korea causes trouble. But neither does China want North Korea to collapse. For China, the best outcome for now is maintenance of the status quo. Which is what today's deal extends.

So is Secretary Rice's deal a favor to the Chinese, a deal-within-a-deal? By helping the Chinese avoid a problem with North Korea, will the Chinese now help the U.S. somewhere else, perhaps with Iran?

Is today's deal clever grand strategy by President Bush and Secretary Rice? Or just petty vanity displayed by an administration soon to leave office? We should know the answer soon enough.

October 1949? June 25, 1950? Does time ever move forward in this neck of the woods? Is the US forever fated to stand athwart the shadow of Beijing's colossus, with nary a well-conceived strategy about what to do about it? Beijing's 58 year old Pyongyang gambit is still dragging on.

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