Just who is the head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency working for?

IAEA chief Mohamed El Baradei has just emerged from a visit to North Korea to tell reporters in Beijing that “The DPRK says their cooperation, accepting inspectors, will come after the lifting of the sanctions.”

That’s an interesting formulation, which basically puts the burden on the sanctioners, not on North Korea’s totalitarian government — which has turned nuclear extortion into one of its main industries, and has already lied and cheated on previous nuclear freeze deals. We can expect that kind of statement from officials working for Kim Jong Il’s regime, but why should the IAEA be a purveyor of Pyongyang’s duplicities?

One might hope the U.S. State Department — or some higher placed U.S. official - would respond by pointing out that America does not pay nuclear blackmail, and that the onus is entirely on North Korea. But instead, President Bush and Secretary of State Condi Rice seem to have turned over U.S. policy almost entirely to Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill, envoy to the Six-Party talks on North Korea. And in Chris Hill’s universe, all we have to do to be safe is close our eyes, cover our ears, bow down and pay tribute to Kim Jong Il.

Hill has been prostrating himself to North Korea for some time, most recently telling the press that the mere fact that North Korea “received” El Baradei was “a good sign.” Under what we might now call the Chris Hill Doctrine, the U.S. has already promised 50,000 tons of free fuel, with another 950,000 tons to follow, and given in to North Korea’s demands for bilateral talks (North Korea officials met last week with Hill in New York). And Treasury, which until Hill’s giveaway was doing a great job of pressuring North Korea, has just taken steps — see the latest on Macau’s Banco Delta Asia — expected to ease the financial pressure.

Pandering to North Korea’s nuclear extortion racket is not the way to stop North Korea’s nuclear threat. It is the way to create more and bigger nuclear extortion rackets and threats. That might be terrific business for the IAEA’s El Baradei, and for negotiators like Chris Hill — now surfing a wave of publicity and self-importance — but it’s a very bad idea for the rest of us.

I’ve been keeping an eye out for the American Enterprise to post a transcript of Bernard Lewis’s speech from last week’s annual dinner. It’s not there yet, but in looking for it, I began browsing through some of the previous speeches, and came across a marvelous, unabashed and bracing address that President Ronald Reagan gave in 1988. It richly deserves re-reading today. It includes the short, straightforward lines quoted above, and here is a longer excerpt:

We came to Washington together in 1981, both as anti-Communists and as unapologetic defenders and promoters of a strong and vibrant America. I am proud to say I am still an anti-Communist. And I continue to be dedicated to the idea that we must trumpet our beliefs and advance our American ideals to all the peoples of the world until the towers of the tyrants crumble to dust.

Yes, it seems to me that we have been as one these past eight years in an effort to establish a foreign policy that stood in firm opposition to the previous decade’s misguided attempt to place this country on what they used to call in the 1970s the “right side of history”–by which those who used that unpleasant Marxist phrase meant we should accept the dominion of our adversaries over large parts of the world.

We said no. We said we must propound and advance our national ideals abroad and once again hold high the banner for what I will, until the breath is gone from my body, continue to call “the free world.”

You can read the entire transcript here.

Just how deaf has the Washington press corps become? Princeton’s world famous scholar of Islam, Bernard Lewis, gave a landmark speech Wednesday at the American Enterprise Institute’s annual dinner. Warning that the 14-century-long struggle between Christianity and Islam is entering a new phase, in which radical Islamists have found a sense of identity and purpose, while we are losing our own to self-denigration and self-abasement, Lewis cited as one example the Pope apologizing last year for the crusades. Lewis urged us to have a little sense of proportion, and went on to say — and it was an illuminating line — “The crusade was a late, limited and unsuccessful imitation of the jihad.”

(Repeat: “unsuccessful” was what Lewis said).

But that’s not how Wall Street Journal reporter Neil King Jr. described it. On the Journal’s Washington Wire blog site, under the absurdly misleading headline “Bernard Lewis Applauds the Crusades,” King misquoted Lewis as having described the crusades as “a late, limited and successful imitation of the jihad.”

This has already begun spawning commentary in the blogosphere, slamming Lewis for something that is the opposite of what he actually said.

I was at the dinner, but did not get around to reading the Journal’s Washington Wire until this morning. It was so outrageously at odds with what I remembered, and with my own notes on Lewis’s speech, that I phoned Bernard Lewis today to check. He confirmed that he was in no way defending the crusades: “I said their behavior was atrocious,” and that he in no way described them as a success, but quite explicitly as “unsuccessful.” He added — and the rest of his almost one-hour speech provides rich and important context for this response — “What I did say was that apologizing for them was absurd.”

That is very different from the bizarre headline and quote on the March 8 Washington Wire.

What would not be absurd, what would in fact be entirely appropriate, would be an apology and correction from the Journal, a newspaper that prides itself on accurate reporting and states on its web site that the Washington Wire is “among the most venerated products of the Journal’s Washington bureau.” Surely the Journal’s readers deserve an accurate account of a major Washington speech by a man who is not only one of the great modern scholars of Islam, but also a staunch champion of human decency, dignity and freedom — in any part of the globe.

AEI has not yet posted a transcript (though when they do, it will probably appear here). For those who wish to check the delivery, as well as listen to Lewis’s richly grounded, clearly articulated and vitally important message, C-Span 2 is airing Bernard Lewis’s AEI speech at 2 PM today, and we can hope they might post a link to the video.

No, I’m not talking here about Scooter Libby, but about another case that ought to be of far more concern to those who object to dirty schemes and secrecy in high places — the case of a man who until recently was the highest-ranking Russian diplomat at the UN, Vladimir Kuznetsov.

Kuznetsov was found guilty Wednesday in Manhattan federal court of conspiring to launder hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks obtained by yet another Russian who also worked at the UN, in the procurement department, Alexander Yakovlev — who pled guilty in 2005 to wire fraud and money laundering, and testified as a government witness at Kuznetsov’s trial. What’s especially rich in all this is that Kuznetsov worked as chairman of the UN’s budget oversight committee, which is supposed to keep an eye on how the UN spends billions of your tax dollars.

I’ve been down at the courthouse much of the past week, following the trial, and will have more to say about it. But one immediate observation: This case is a terrific argument in favor of a lot more UN transparency than anything the UN — despite all its promises — has so far delivered. It was not the UN, neither was it Paul Volcker’s UN-authorized investigation into Oil-for-Food, that first brought to light Yakovlev’s offshore dealings, which led to the unearthing of the kickback-money-laundering scheme. It was the media (in fact, it was a story on Fox News, June 20, 2005, which I wrote together with Fox News executive editor George Russell). Prior to that, the UN procurement department had been assuring us all was well, and Volcker had issued an interim report that rather weirdly depicted Yakovlev as a guardian of UN integrity. All of which suggests that if the UN were to make available to the public the full archives of its procurement department (which it most certainly does not), and of Volcker’s inquiry (which Volcker never released, and last December turned over to the UN’s secretive legal department), there is a distinct likelihood that yet more might come to light. If honesty at the UN is good policy, what’s to be afraid of?

Credit the UN that despite the many veils of secrecy at Turtle Bay, there is at least a ritual noon press briefing, at which reporters may not always get real answers, but at least they get to ask real questions (where is that Mercedes?).

But this past Monday the briefing turned into a master-class in how to hold a press conference while avoiding almost all questions from the press. The much-anticipated and well-attended event was a guest appearance at the noon briefing by Under-Secretary-General Alicia Barcena — who in early January took charge of the important and scandal-plagued UN Department of Management, which handles billions in UN purchasing and oversees such vital matters as UN administrative reform. Reporters had been asking for weeks for a press conference with Barcena, who among other things is supposed to be implementing the Secretary-General’s promises of greater transparency at the UN.

Here, at last, was the chance … but here’s how it played out.

The noon briefing did not begin at noon, but at about 12:13 PM, when UN Spokeswoman Michele Montas arrived late and began reading a long list of annoucements. She then took a series of questions. That went on for about 22 minutes. Finally, at about 12:35, Barcena took the podium. She spent 11 minutes talking in general terms about UN reform.

By then, the time was roughly 12:46 PM. The room had somehow been scheduled to be turned over at 1:00 PM for a press briefing by Her Excellency Natalya Petkevich, Deputy Head of Administration of the President of the Republic of Belarus. Apparently, while the noon briefing does not have to begin at noon, it was vital that the 1:00 PM Belarus briefing begin on the dot.

That left all of about 13 minutes for Barcena to take about four questions, before explaining she would love to do it all again, and bustling out of the press room.

Here’s the webcast (scroll down to the March 5 briefing). The entire experience took 47 minutes, 22 seconds — in its way, a work of art.

Every now and then the law of unintended consequences works out for the best. That’s just how it’s turned out with the nasty campaign last year to block John Bolton’s confirmation as ambassador to the UN. Bolton during his time at Turtle Bay was as good an ambassador as we’re going to get; but getting anything useful done at the UN is a labor of Sisyphus, and even Bolton could not get far. He was dealing with the Kofi-crony crowd in the Secretariat, the thug-packed General Assembly, the permanent hypocrites on the Security Council, and at his back was a back-stabbing State Department that under Condoleezza Rice seems to be harking back to the foreign policy of Jimmy Carter. It was a mix that left Bolton as ambassador toiling away against impossible odds on what were hopelessly flawed official initiatives to begin with.

Bolton is now clear of all that, free to speak his mind, and from the American Enterprise Institute has become a desperately needed voice of sanity in Washington. He has an important article in Monday’s Wall Street Journal — vital reading — on “The North Korea Climbdown,” addressing the recent attempts by “Washington’s most important person — the Anonymous Senior Official” to spin away the North Korean nuclear threat.

On the North Korea front, the coming week promises all sorts of diplomatic thrills, now that Pyongyang has promised — again — to stop its nuclear bomb program in exchange for promises from the U.S. to send — again — hundreds of millions worth of aid and to work toward U.S. diplomatic recognition down the road. Pyongyang’s nuclear negotiator Kim Kye Gwan is now in the U.S., due to meet Monday with the U.S. State Department’s envoy to the six-party talks, Chris Hill. The IAEA’s Mohamed El Baradei is due Tuesday in Pyongyang.

We’re told, as usual, that this time North Korea really wants to come clean. Oh really? If that’s so, then here’s a suggestion for an easy, upfront, good-faith gift from Kim Kye Gwan — one that ought to be a pre-condition for any talks at all. How about North Korea’s regime handing over the printing presses it’s been using to produce millions upon millions in counterfeit U.S. currency?

For years, according to our own Treasury (see page seven), North Korea has been counterfeiting U.S. money, churning out high-quality fake U.S. banknotes and laundering them into world markets — including notes with a face value of $2 million seized just last year at the port of Los Angeles. Treasury has been fighting to stop this racket by tracking the fake banknotes and freezing North Korea out of the international banking system. Treasury’s efforts, which have been paying off, are now being undercut by State’s desire to cut a deal with Kim, whatever the price not only in dollars, but in U.S. credibility and genuine security.

So how about it, Mr. Hill? What’s the problem, Mr. Kim? Ship the presses from North Korea to NY, preferably at Pyongyang’s expense (let Kim dip into his cognac, pleasure-palace and bomb budgets, and pay up in real currency). If Condoleezza Rice still has any backbone left at all, the U.S. could maybe offer these presses on loan to the UN, as one of those rotating educational exhibits for visitors to the main lobby. They would also make a great backdrop for any future talks Chris Hill might want to hold — a sort of handy tangible reminder of what North Korea’s promises have been worth in the past.

As it is, Kim Jong Il is once again about to profit at American expense from his nuclear blackmail racket — a precedent that Iran’s regime, and others, must be noting with keen interest. We, the U.S. taxpayers, are once again being invited — as Bush reverts to the failed policies of Bill Clinton — to avert our eyes from North Korea’s mind-bending record of extortion, murder, and lies, while our tax dollars pay for aid that may well go to bulk up even further Kim’s weapons programs and his military. Under the new U.S. diplomacy, it seems membership in the murderous axis of evil is no longer a one-way ticket to history’s graveyard of discarded lies, but a bargaining chip to be cashed in at the U.S. State Department. If we are going to go down this road, couldn’t we at least literally get some of our money’s worth? — What about those printing presses?