We'll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons.
-State of the Union Address, President George W. Bush, January 29, 2002. This was the so-called 'Axis of Evil' speech.
"Why won't the Bush administration talk bilaterally and substantively with NK, as the Brits (and eventually the US) did with Libya? Because the Bush administration sees diplomacy as something to be engaged in with another country as a reward for that country's good behavior. They seem not to see diplomacy as a tool to be used with antagonistic countries or parties, that might bring about an improvement in the behaviour of such entities, and a resolution to the issues that trouble us. Thus we do not talk to Iran, Syria, Hizballah or North Korea. We only talk to our friends -- a huge mistake."
-Donald Gregg, on WashingtonPost.com today. Gregg was a national security adviser to President Carter and V.P. George H.W. Bush.
You will hear many a Bush-apologist blame Clinton for North Korea's nuclear test. Clinton is not blameless, but Bush's North Korea policy for the past six years has mostly been to call North Korea and its leader bad names ('evil' and 'pygmy' come to mind) and to refuse North Korea's request for direct diplomatic talks. Look where that policy has gotten the world.
Fact: The only glimmers of success the U.S. has had with North Korea in the past 12 years came when Clinton and Bush instructed their diplomats to sit down and talk with their North Korean counterparts. Yet, Bush's policy to North Korea for the bulk of his presidency has been to shun talks. In Bush World, diplomacy is something you do with your friends.
Clinton could have done better, no doubt. But even judged by Bush's own standard (reprinted above), the current policy is a colossal failure. The countdown to last weekend's North Korean nuclear test started on January 29, 2002. It's not Clinton's fault that the Bush Administration was too busy bungling Iraq to watch the clock.
1 comments:
I saw James Baker being interviewed the other night and, in a not very thinly veiled criticism, he said how he believes the U.S. should talk with everyone, not just their friends. He used the example of Syria during the Gulf War, saying he met with Assad 21 times leading up the first Iraqi conflict. The result: America was able to use Syrian air space (if memory serves). "Talking to someone has nothing to do with appeasement," Baker said. God, did you ever think we'd be nostalgic for Bush 41?
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