Oh For God's Sake - (liberals' duplicity when opposing multilaterialism w. North Korea)

RED STATES.ORG ^ | MAY 7, 2005 | Pejman Yousefzadeh

[CHARLITE]

I really get tired of these kinds of arguments.http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_05/006275.php Look, having six-party talks regarding issues affecting the Korean peninsula has been an overwhelmingly bipartisan project ever since the end of the Korean War. Any effort to pretend that the Bush Administration is the first one to have come up with the concept is wrong. Ridiculously wrong. And even beyond the traditional nature of the demand for six-party talks, they make sense. If you don't have six-party talks, then North Korea will try to push South Korea out of the diplomatic equation altogether and will be able to avoid getting any pressure whatsoever from either China, Russia or Japan (and by the way, the North Koreans listen to the Chinese so acceding to a policy that would rub them out of the picture is especially goofy). The other four parties to the talks approve of the multilateral approach and as has been pointed out before, it is kind of funny to see that in the case of North Korea, multilateralism is a bugaboo in Democratic foreign policy discussions.

Additionally--and this is a big deal for totalitarian regimes--the North Koreans would be able to gain legitimacy from the ability to parlay on equal terms with the United States. We kind of don't want that to happen because such gains in legitimacy might actually exacerbate the problems in dealing with North Korea by making it more difficult to muster an international coalition against the North Korean regime if the regime is able to shed its rogue state status in the eyes of the international community.

Finally, there is no demonstrated causal relationship whatsoever between the lack of bilateral discussions and the potential ascension of North Korea to the nuclear club. None. Does anyone really believe that if the Bush Administration acceded to the demands for bilateral talks, the North Koreans would even think about giving up nuclear weapons? Does anyone really think that if Al Gore or John Kerry were in charge, the North Koreans would forego their desire for a nuclear program? I realize that it is nice and fun to bash George W. Bush over at Political Animal, but can we have some facts interspersed with the bashing please?

[CHARLITE]

John Kerry made the charge of "going it alone" a central platform of his '04 campaign. Now, simply because the Bush administration is insisting on full participation of regional powers in N. Korean negotiating policy - hence NOT "going it alone," this is suddenly anathema to Kerry and the Dems.