Posted on 12/10/2007 8:00:08 PM PST by AmericanInTokyo
What Bush Was Really Asking Kim Jong-il
On Oct. 9 last year, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice returned from a Middle East tour and relaxed in her apartment after dinner with friends. Rice has been the best-traveled secretary of state since Henry Kissinger, but reportedly doesn't enjoy travel very much. Around 9 p.m., Rice got a phone call from Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns. He told her that the Chinese government had informed the U.S. Embassy in Beijing of North Korea's impending nuclear test. An hour later, the U.S. Geological Survey confirmed that North Korea had conducted a nuclear test. Rice was busy making phone calls until early next morning.
At the time, it had been almost two years since the second Bush administration was inaugurated. No solutions to Iraq, Iran or North Korea were in sight. The more the U.S. attacked and criticized Iran and North Korea, the more unpopular it became. In a worldwide poll, almost half of the respondents said the U.S. was playing only a negative role and was not helpful to the international community.
According to an article entitled "The Confidante" by Glenn Kessler, a diplomatic correspondent for the Washington Post, Rice made an important decision right after the North conducted the nuclear test. She decided to focus on three goals -- to achieve success in talks on the North Korean nuclear problem, to make progress in nuclear talks with Iran and to help the Palestinians establish their state -- before the Bush administration's term ends. She was determined to produce tangible results.
Circumstances favored her cause. Hardliners like Vice President Dick Cheney or Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who were deeply involved in the first Bush administration's foreign policies had less influence or had left the administration, and the new Defense Secretary Robert Gates was poised to concentrate only on Iraq.
During her Christmas holidays that year, Rice read through mountains of State Department records. She wanted to learn a lesson from how the Clinton administration wound up its tenure.
Rice revised her goals. She decided that Bush would need some achievements he could display to the American people and she a legacy to leave behind as secretary of state. She had to take a realistic and practical approach. A good example of her change was her decision to find a breakthrough in the North Korean nuclear talks by unfreezing North Korea’s US$25 million from the Banco Delta Asia in Macao. The ensuing sudden change in U.S. policy was the outcome of the decision Rice made right after the North Korean nuclear test. Bush gave his consent. Both were desperate for Iraq to be the last and only foreign-policy nightmare for the administration. That is the context in which Bush has now sent a personal letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
It is worth noting here that Bush and Rice are also taking a special interest in the Middle East issue. Bush recently launched new peace talks between Israel and Palestine in Annapolis and is expected to visit the Middle East early next year. The Clinton administration lost the opportunity to improve U.S.-North Korean relations because it gave North Korea a lower priority than the Middle East on its list of last-moment foreign policies. At the time, Clinton rejected Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's recommendation that he visit the North, saying he didn’t want to go the other side of the globe at a time when the conclusion of the Middle East peace talks is imminent.
The Bush administration's term ends in about a year, and already election fever is high. The best possible result for Bush and Rice is progress in the talks on both issues -- Middle East peace and the North Korean nuclear problem. If there is no prospect of progress in either in the near future, Bush and Rice would try to focus on whichever issue offers a greater chance of resolution. That is why North Korea should hurry up to declare its nuclear programs, facilities and stockpiles completely and honestly by the end of this year. Will North Korea settle everything up with the Bush administration after years of talks? Or will it go back to square one and start all over again with the new administration that will be inaugurated in 2009? That is the question Bush asked of North Korea in his personal letter.
The column was contributed by Chosun Ilbo in-house columnist Kang In-sun.
This may help answer the growing chorus of Freepers' "Whaaat??? Say AGAIN?!", issued in sheer disbelief and astonishment.
MUST READ!
Who will take it on and open this up for wider debate and scrutiny?
Hunter? Thompson? Tancredo? Romney?
Interesting.
I guess it’s gonna be a wait and see.
I think you and I are in agreement.
This looks and smells like an Albright.
No! As long as Kim stays in power, the Norks will play games called 'negotiations', and do as they please.
It will take outside intervention to kick them into the modern world community. The same can be said about most of the muslims, too.
It's curious that the N.K. and Cuban relic-commies haven't just been blockaded into dying by now .......................... FRegards
I was a wholehearted BUSH/CONDI supporter on North Korea from day one, until about one and a half years ago, when they broke from reality.A Fierce supporter.
Because they had the correct approach and assailed the way chosen by Albright and the Clintonites.
But then, they abandoned that wise path completely, so I abandoned my support of THEM.
As a result, Bushbots show up here on FR and call me (and others who are critical of Bush and his State Department) a "Bush Hater".
Hater of Bush policies of appeasement?
Guilty as charged.
A “Tiger/Seven” pingaroo!
Now they got caught with their hands iin the Syrian /Iran cookie jar, supplying plutonium to them , according to Israelis post op intel on Septembers bombing of a weapons plant in Syria, where damage assessment by IDF commandos revealed Iranian and Norkie tech corpses in the rubble.
Kim Jong Il knows that this is his last chance with Bush, but then his strategy may be just as the article says. He wants to extend the negotiations until a new administration takes office. He thnks that the Dems under "It Takes a Village" will be suckers the same way Madelaine Albright , America's worst Sec State ever, was.
The USA has turned into a Banana Republic on foreign policy, simply because of the death of any bi-partisan policy on dealing with America's enemies.
And the Democrat party is to blame.
I have a new “peace plan” for North Korea: how ‘bout if we waterboard the pathetic little troll from Pyongyang until he begs to be allowed to destroy all of his WMD programs, disband his military, police and spy services, and then he welcomes Korean unification under the governance of the government in Seoul?????
OK, I guess we can’t so easily get ahold of him for the waterboarding part, but I like the rest anyway.....
Democrats dont get all of the blame, but a lot of it.
Be careful!
/jk
Who gives-a-shiite? Bush is both good and bad to me. Good in his prosecution of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and bad for not arming our Civilian Pilots immediately after 9/11, and for his stupid 'shamnesty' plan over illegal-aliens.
His time is winding down anyway, and I'll take him at his word that when he leaves office, there won't be anything left for Iran to build an A-Bomb with.
I'll work here in the USA to get the Bush-Family and the klintoon-mafia out of our politics for four or eight years. Stay well ....................... FRegards
Gotta run just now.
I'll leave this behind...
This article is essentially based on the material from a huge flop “The Confidante” by Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler. They keep rehashing their wishful thinking and spin their opinions as the facts and, unfortunately, by repeating essentially the same story over and over again (”Big Lie” Theory comes to mind) convinced some people of it. And that’s despite overwhelming success of six-party talks on North Korea by shifting the burden for the “problem child” of the region to the country the “child” entirely depends on - China, and shifting the most of the rest of our burden on other players in the region who are now on our side.
Here is the Kessler’s book reviews from sympathetic AFP and AP from last September :
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1890230/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1890353/posts
The only game left for Kim is to try and survive until possible Democratic administration with which he can try playing the same bilateral talks (as Biden and other Dem idiots have suggested) that have failed (Clinton / Albright) and are guaranteed to fail because they provide no leverage for US.
Amazing how, using the media, they can spin their failures into successes, and our successes into looking like failures... Easy formula - repeat it enough times and people will start to believe it. So many people, even on FR, started to believe that we were losing “war in Iraq” because of constant repetition until it was no longer tenable.
Barring Democratic administration, North Korea’s days as viable nuclear proliferation threat are over. It’s not surprising that Syria’s nuclear plant development was bombed shortly after we had our “boots on the ground” in Pyongyang.
Our biggest challenge on Korean peninsula will be managing eventual unification so combined Korea would not become a socialist, China leaning state.
bttt
Should we recognize them and exchange ambassadors?
Here’s the answer about Albright’s father, apparently Maddie was not a good student of his :
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1804764/posts?page=25#25
Sorry, you didn’t see it before, entire thread is also pretty good.
Here’s additional info with more good links, if you are inclined.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1844398/posts?page=20#20
Also to keep in mind, that was posted around the time when we were “losing” the “war in Iraq” and, consequently, were looking for scapegoats.
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