Nukes Archives

Kim and the Bogeyman

October 27, 2006 09:28 AM

From a BBC documentary on North Korea last night, I learned that North Korea is a thoroughly totalitarian state ruled over by an arbitrary and erratic regime that has starved millions of its people and enslaved the minds of the rest - but really wouldn't be much of a threat without George W. Bush. The "Axis of Evil" speech is depicted as a sudden interruption in the positive direction of relations between the two countries. The report notes that Bush also once referred to Kim Jong-Il as a "pygmy" - an occurrance which, even if true (and unhelpful), is hardly a legitimate excuse to detonate a nuclear device. Alas, this is all par for the course at the Beeb.

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Secretary of Dense

October 11, 2006 08:17 AM

In the Washington Post, former Defense Sec. William Perry reminds us that we haven't properly thanked the Clinton administration for the "major delay" it caused in North Korea's nuclear program.

The most important such limit would have been on reprocessing spent fuel from North Korea's reactor to make plutonium. The Clinton administration declared in 1994 that if North Korea reprocessed, it would be crossing a "red line," and it threatened military action if that line was crossed. The North Koreans responded to that pressure and began negotiations that led to the Agreed Framework. The Agreed Framework did not end North Korea's aspirations for nuclear weapons, but it did result in a major delay. For more than eight years, under the Agreed Framework, the spent fuel was kept in a storage pond under international supervision.

Then in 2002, the Bush administration discovered the existence of a covert program in uranium, evidently an attempt to evade the Agreed Framework. This program, while potentially serious, would have led to a bomb at a very slow rate, compared with the more mature plutonium program. Nevertheless, the administration unwisely stopped compliance with the Agreed Framework. In response the North Koreans sent the inspectors home and announced their intention to reprocess. The administration deplored the action but set no "red line." North Korea made the plutonium. [My italics]

Oy. Maybe, in 1994, one could believe that the threat of "military action" drew the North Koreans to the bargaining table. But really: At what point does it become seriously delusional to believe the ensuing talks were an example of successful bilateral diplomacy, and not a rather crafty diversionary tactic by a rogue regime that never had any intention of halting its nuclear program and played the U.S. government for fools?

I say 2002 is the cut-off point.

P.S. A "red line" is only a red line if a plausible military option exists on the other side of it. Show us that Clinton "military" plan! I could use a good laugh.

Link · American Politics | Diplomacy | North Korea | Nukes | Nukes

Nukes Archives

Secretary of Dense

October 11, 2006 08:17 AM

In the Washington Post, former Defense Sec. William Perry reminds us that we haven't properly thanked the Clinton administration for the "major delay" it caused in North Korea's nuclear program.

The most important such limit would have been on reprocessing spent fuel from North Korea's reactor to make plutonium. The Clinton administration declared in 1994 that if North Korea reprocessed, it would be crossing a "red line," and it threatened military action if that line was crossed. The North Koreans responded to that pressure and began negotiations that led to the Agreed Framework. The Agreed Framework did not end North Korea's aspirations for nuclear weapons, but it did result in a major delay. For more than eight years, under the Agreed Framework, the spent fuel was kept in a storage pond under international supervision.

Then in 2002, the Bush administration discovered the existence of a covert program in uranium, evidently an attempt to evade the Agreed Framework. This program, while potentially serious, would have led to a bomb at a very slow rate, compared with the more mature plutonium program. Nevertheless, the administration unwisely stopped compliance with the Agreed Framework. In response the North Koreans sent the inspectors home and announced their intention to reprocess. The administration deplored the action but set no "red line." North Korea made the plutonium. [My italics]

Oy. Maybe, in 1994, one could believe that the threat of "military action" drew the North Koreans to the bargaining table. But really: At what point does it become seriously delusional to believe the ensuing talks were an example of successful bilateral diplomacy, and not a rather crafty diversionary tactic by a rogue regime that never had any intention of halting its nuclear program and played the U.S. government for fools?

I say 2002 is the cut-off point.

P.S. A "red line" is only a red line if a plausible military option exists on the other side of it. Show us that Clinton "military" plan! I could use a good laugh.

Link · American Politics | Diplomacy | North Korea | Nukes | Nukes