Left Flank

I'm undecided about buying former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's posthumously published plea for Islamic and civilizational «Reconciliation». Mostly, I can't forgive her for abetting A.Q. Khan to build his uranium bomb (and, recall her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, got Khan started), but The Economist is about as even-handed as I care to read about Ms. Bhutto and keep considering a purchase.

Much of this book's argument has been rehearsed before. Bhutto defends Islam's liberal, tolerant traditions. The first person to embrace the religion, she points out, was a woman, Bibi Khadijah, later to become the Prophet's wife. And she debunks as “convenient and simplistic” the notion that Islam and democracy are somehow incompatible. Yet her own political overview of Muslim countries tends also to be rather simplistic.

She tackles head-on the thesis of Samuel Huntington's essay and book, “The Clash of Civilisations”, declaring herself a “reconciliationist”, not a “clasher”. She even proposes her blueprint for reconciliation: a kind of Islamic Marshall plan, using the petrodollars of the Gulf and the riches of the West, Japan and China to assist “the Islamic world to leap into modernity”.

The observation that economic backwardness fuels anti-Western feeling and fanaticism, however, is hardly new. Familiar, too, is her analysis of the culpability of the West in propping up dictators where they seem strategically useful, undermining its claims to be promoting democracy. The victims of this hypocrisy include, of course, her own country, which, like a recent cover of this newspaper, she calls “the most dangerous place in the world”. Her effort to make it safer led her last year to negotiate with Pervez Musharraf, the president she had long reviled as an unprincipled military dictator. She recounts the pragmatic haggling that enabled her return, at the expense, her critics would argue, of the unity of the civilian democratic opposition.

Here as elsewhere in this book and in Bhutto's autobiography, “Daughter of the East”, there is a tension between the fervour of her expressed ideals and the reality of her political life. Her refusal to acknowledge any mistakes during her deeply disappointing stints as prime minister may be inevitable in a campaigning politician. But it made it hard to share her enthusiasm for what she might achieve at the third attempt.

But, yes, she was brave.

I'm not going to spend good money on a hardback, but here's two books any conservative can send me.

Firstly, there's Ambassador John Bolton's Surrender Is Not an Option (available in Palm Reader format). Bolton sounded almost human on the clip above.

Then, there's The Reluctant Communist. Richardson at DPRK Studies has pre-ordered and already plugged Charles Robert Jenkins' chance to cash in on treason.

Update: Richardson accuses me of flipping on Jenkins. Actually, I haven't. I still believe he's a traitor, and the Constitution is quite unequivocal about the penalty for treason. Traitors are the only criminals who deserve to die by the State's hand. Along with Richard Hanssen and other spies, Jenkins deserves death.

But, I accepted Richardson's argument that Jenkins' book might include valuable information on DPRK. Also, I do feel compassion for his family. Similarly, I would consider Bolton's arguments, notwithstanding his efforts to undermine the IAEA and tarnish Mohammed ElBaradei's reputation.

The old habits of the blogosphere based on linking and engagement have broken down. If Richardson's blog is so popular with conservatives, that he doesn't need anyone else's links, I salute him. As a centrist, I look beyond my comfort zone routinely. But, I realize regrettably there are bloggers who take engagement as a signal for defending the fort.

1. "I think that Mr. Bernanke has been drinking the same sort of Keynesian Kool-Aid that other prominent economists like Larry Summers have been drinking." (Economic Retardant Package)

2. Shameless adoration for Thomas Jefferson. (Capitol Tribune seconds that vote, with a satirical aside.) Anyone who wants to buy me this book will also be worshipped!

Actually I'm not a Jefferson fan (as readers might gather from my trip to John Marshall's home in Richmond, Virginia). I just like a book that undercuts hagiography.

Having just read this review at The Economist I bought this book whose themes intersect with my interests in East Asian relations and nuclear non-proliferation.

During a visit last year to Washington, DC, to try to convince George Bush's administration that she was the answer to Pakistan's problems, Benazir Bhutto promised to hand over Abdul Qadeer Khan, the former head of her nation's atomic bomb programme, who has been living under house arrest in Islamabad since 2004. Under Miss Bhutto's rule, Mr Khan would be made available for questioning—not directly by the Americans, but by the next best thing, the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.

Miss Bhutto is now dead, and it is unlikely that any other Pakistani leader in the near future will allow the world to know the full details of how a Pakistani scientist came to sell nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea. The reaction at home to Miss Bhutto's proposal was outrage. Mr Khan, best known as A.Q. Khan, may officially be in disgrace and forced to live without access to radio, television or the internet, but for many Pakistanis he remains a national hero. When he was hospitalised last year the prime minister sent flowers.

«The Nuclear Jihadist» exposes in detail how Mr Khan, an affable, mediocre metallurgist inspired by the dream of an Islamic bomb, stole nuclear technology from the Dutch laboratory in which he was working in the mid-1970s, moved back to Pakistan to build a giant enrichment complex to make the bomb at Kahuta in Punjab province, and then created a nuclear Wal-Mart to sell the parts to others. The authors describe his work as the linchpin of the «second nuclear age».

Pakistan's progress towards becoming a nuclear power began with Miss Bhutto's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who promised, «If India builds the bomb, we will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own.» As for Miss Bhutto, she told the Americans when she was prime minister in the late 1980s that she did not know the details of the nuclear device her scientists were developing. If she was being truthful, the authors suggest she was close to negligent. She assured George Bush senior that she would keep Pakistan from enriching uranium to weapons-grade level, and was promptly sold 60 F-16 fighter jets. America had sold Pakistan 40 F-16s during the Reagan presidency, when it already knew about the nuclear programme.

The book's most revealing passages are about America's role in the affair. The authors argue that successive American administrations knew a lot about Mr Khan's activities, but for larger strategic foreign-policy reasons, chose to do nothing about them. Mr Khan was able to flout international rules on nuclear non-proliferation because American policymakers thought that securing Pakistan's assistance in defeating the Soviet Union in Afghanistan—and, more recently, President Pervez Musharraf's help in fighting terrorism—were more important than limiting the spread of nuclear bombs.

I might move this reading up in the queue, so stay tuned...

Caveat: This is not a book review; I have not read this book. I was interested in the opinions expressed in these two book reviews. But, for a complete account of the war, I recommend William Stueck's The Korean War and Rethinking the Korean War.

David Halberstam's last book, The Coldest Winter, about the Korean War, is receiving attention more for its author's career than the subject.

Two reviews, by Stephen Sestanovich and Erik Spanberg, caught my attention for what each said, not for the book each agreed was important, but if only for its author. Sestanovich concludes:

The Korean War that David Halberstam describes offers echo after echo of our contemporary predicament, or at least of one reading of it. His story is all about the hijacking of American policy, the fomenting of national hysteria, and the disaster that follows. But he would have written a truer?and, for that matter, a more useful?book if he had admitted how many people in high positions thought the policy was both necessary and right. For an understanding of the insidious workings of consensus, rather than of conspiracy, The Best and the Brightest would have been an excellent place to start.

Spanberg concludes:

No one won much of anything, but the ripples and lessons of political and military hubris echo to the present. «The Coldest Winter» is a fitting, warm tribute to the art of reporting, the most appropriate epitaph imaginable for David Halberstam.

What about the Koreas today? What about the Six-Party talks at least? Has the Iraq War and partisan politics in America warped perception so completely, that all of history is a lesson about the Bush administration? Both reviewers agree on Halberstam's main thesis: General MacArthur was the problem. But, there were over two years left to a sausage-grinder of a war, in which battles often occurred for no reason but diplomatic leverage. Spanberg punctuates what for me is one of the enduring legacies of the war.

Late in the book, Halberstam skips over large portions of the war's final two years, exhausted, no doubt, by the endless skirmishes over anonymous hills and villages for little to no gain on both sides.

That is a minor quibble in a book filled with insight and marvelous detail. Some of Halberstam's work in recent years smacked of a reporting treadmill, churned out too quickly. With «The Coldest Winter,» it is clear that Halberstam invested all of his considerable talents - and energy - without being rushed to meet a publishing deadline.

Within the tedious diplomatic exchanges at Panmumjon lies the record of the infuriating tactics Pyongyang has honed to a science in the last 50 years. The casualties and deaths compiled on those Korean hills while diplomats talked is a harbinger of decades of murderous economic development and political infighting in both Koreas, and, possibly, of a future war. America could not end the war then in victory, and America has not found a way to end a war still stuck in armistice. The denizens of the DPRK's gulags are a testament to that inhumanly brutal and frustrating legacy.

Ang Lee has made the sort of movie I want to see, and in the way I like a director to support it. Let, I would argue, viewers decide if a director's work is good.

The New York Times presented the first chapter of a newly-published book by a Korean-American woman, Min Jin Lee, entitled Free Food for Millionaires. Years ago, I read both Chang-Rae Lee and Susan Choi, but, according to Liesl Schillinger's review, Lee's novel looks as if it has the historical gravity and personal depth worthy of a serious read. Although I'm skeptical of the claim that han «...by general consensus, applies chiefly to women», just tackling that issue is quite a feat.

It would be remarkable if she had simply written a long novel that was as easy to devour as a 19th-century romance—packed with tales of flouted parental expectations, fluctuating female friendships and rivalries, ephemeral (and longer-lasting) romantic hopes and losses, and high-stakes career gambles. But Lee intensifies her drama by setting it against an unfamiliar backdrop: the tightly knit social world of Korean immigrants, whose children strive to blend into their American foreground without clashing with their distinctive background. It’s a feat of coordination and contrast that could kill a chameleon, but Lee pulls it off with conviction.

Read the excerpt, too. If nothing else, Korean War-era Pusan is mentioned as a backdrop. But, there's nothing like family tension in the first scene to set up a good read!

According to Bradley Martin, North Korea is beyond nukes—it's the economy, stupid, that matters now!

While North Korea is hardly going pacifist seven months after testing an atomic device, the propaganda shift may signal a significant change in policy, according to expatriate businessmen living in the isolated country. Now that it is a nuclear power, North Korea appears to be directing more resources to improving an economy on its knees after decades of sanctions and isolation, they say.

Korean officials â€ūare now confident they can defend their country,'’ said Felix Abt, the Swiss president of PyongSu Pharma Joint Venture Co. Ltd., which recently started manufacturing painkillers and antibiotics in Pyongyang. â€ūTheir next priority is economic development.'’

The policy emphasizes light industry to produce consumer goods. It was formally expressed in a joint editorial that was run at the beginning of the year in three major newspapers published by the regime, Abt said.

This emphasis on improving the North Korean economy was also apparent in Kim Jong-il's inspections this past year.

Last year, when nuclear experiments were enforced, 66 army inspections and army-related events were achieved while raising a confrontational front to the United States. Immediately after the nuclear tests, it spared 16 events in the economic areas of Wonsan Farm and South Hankyung Province Industry Scene while putting forth a confident image under â€ūimprovement of civilian lives.â€?

North Korean advertising media have cast their spotlight as if to show their interest in economic issues while relaying the news of Kim Jong Il’s inspections of Chungjin in North Hamkyung last February, the 4th Taechun power plant, and Jakangdo industry scene.

Further, the North Korean media, through sound arguments via Rodung Shinmum, maintained, â€ūThe days when our people can live well are not too far off.â€? Accordingly, Kim Jong Il’s back-to-back industry inspection walks were portrayed as intentions to renew the impoverished civilian lives in contrast with the past that stressed army inspections.

However, the grandiose promise of â€ūimproving civilian livesâ€? did not show much difference after the economy-related facility visits. Therefore, looking after the army by Kim Jong Il, who does not have a vision or will regarding opening and reforms, may be an inevitable course of action.

South Korea seems to be the main beneficiary of this new economic surge. DPRK-ROK trade increased 25%, predominantly because of Gaeseong, with commercial trade in zinc bullion, sand, fishery items, shoes and clothing topping the list.

Another weird manifestation of this new economic surge seems to be an incentive policy to encourage childbirths (eliminating the political causes of famine would be a better idea!). I've always considering pro-family policies sinister, but Pyongyang's adoption of another South Korean social program (and only in Hamgyung province?) almost clinches it for me.

If a couple gives birth to a second child in the district of Hamheung, South Hamkyung, the whole family will receive 6 months worth of distributions, a source informed. If a third child is born, the rations increase all the more.

After giving birth to a child in a hospital, a married woman from Hamheung can obtain a birth certificate, which is then submitted to the local district office, to receive distributions equivalent to a family of 4. These proposals resemble policies implemented by local district offices in South Korea.

Though Hamheung city has made efforts to increase the birthrate with distributions, the people’s response is all but cold, the source said. How many people would really have a second child just to scavenge off a few months worth of distributions.

One of the main reasons that the birthrate is decreasing in North Korea is due to the fact that women are avoiding giving birth, informed the source.

The source said, â€ūNowadays, North Korean women engage in businesses and are the breadwinners of the family. They are not satisfied with just having children and bringing them upâ€? and added, â€ūEveryone knows that it is hard enough to live and even harder if you have a lot of children.â€?

North and South Korean sisters, unite!

The one thread holding all these measures together is contempt for the US. As Martin reports:

â€ūThe saying goes in Korea, `If there are many clouds, it will soon rain,â€?’ the 28-year-old career officer said. â€ūWe can’t feel safe until the U.S. gives up its hostile attitude.'’

Han eventually responded to a question about what he thought of his government’s spending money on a huge military apparatus—North Korea’s troop strength is the world’s fourth largest—while people don’t have enough food.

â€ūWe receive fright and oppression from the U.S., so I cannot hide that our living standard is not high,'’ Han said. â€ūWe were on an arduous march for a long time. Now we are very proud because we defended socialism with the military-first policy. A strong country can defend itself, but the weak will be beaten down.â€?

Pyongyang's message jives with the argument in a new book written by William Langewiesche reviewed by The Economist, The Atomic Bazaar: The Rise of the Nuclear Poor.

Mr Langewiesche's message is the same as Einstein's: proliferation is inevitable. Nakedly discriminatory, the NPT was at best