No, I could not possibly be talking about U.S. special envoy Chris Hill, who has spent the past year purveying the bizarre calculus that as long as the U.S. keeps its side of the bargain in the Six-Party talks on North Korea, we’re half way to success — never mind if North Korea takes everything and stiffs us on its half of the deal. (Note: putting scotch tape across the door to the Yongbyon reactor, for the second time since 1994, does not count as nuclear disarmament).
The envoy who finally stood up and said the right thing is Jay Lefkowitz, special envoy for human rights in North Korea. In a speech delivered Thursday at the American Enterprise Institute, Lefkowitz spelled out that after four years of Six-Party talks, we’ve got pretty much nothing. Meanwhile, North Korea has conducted an intercontinental ballistic missile test, a nuclear test, and continued brutalizing its own people in ways “deeply offensive to us,” which “should also offend free people around the world.”
Staking out a position not attempted in the Condi Rice State Department since John Bolton left in 2006, Lefkowitz suggested that “Policy should rest on assumptions that correlate with recent facts and events.” He went on to spell out (without mentioning Chris Hill) the ways in which Chris-Hill diplomacy and the Six-Party talks have been a horrifying flop.
Correctly, Lefkowitz warned that “It is increasingly likely that North Korea will have the same nuclear status one year from now that it has today.”
He pointed out that China and South Korea have not provided the help that Washington hoped for in pressuring North Korea, and in a heroic effort to steer American policy back toward first principles, he urged that in any further negotiations, the barbaric nature of the regime be one of the main subjects on the table: “All negotiations with North Korea should firmly link human rights, economic support, and security issues.”
My own view is that we should not be negotiating with North Korea at all; Kim Jong Il has spent years honing his skill at bamboozling, manipulating and extorting concessions from the U.S. and our allies. Give him a seat at any bargaining table, and he will do more of the same. But if Washington is hellbent on negotiating, then Lefkowitz has spelled out the way to give it at least a fighting chance.
So, what was the reaction at State? Did our diplomatic corps rise up at Foggy Bottom and raise their skim-milk lattes to salute this envoy who had the courage to do the right thing? You already know the answer. At the Friday morning State Department press briefing, asked if Lefkowitz was speaking for the Administration, spokesman Sean McCormack replied: “He was not.” McCormack explained that there are “lanes” for North Korean policy at State. Lefkowitz’s lane is human rights; and on all those matters in Chris Hill’s “lane,” such as Six-Party talks and ballistic missile tests and nuclear bombs, Lefkowitz was only expressing “his own opinions.”
To run with that traffic metaphor — Chris Hill may be in his lane, but he’s so busy pretending it takes us where we want to go that he’s driving with his eyes closed. Jay Lefkowitz, whose personal opinions evidently come from keeping his eyes open, has just had the integrity to warn us that without a big change of course, the Condi Rice convoy for North Korea is headed for a quite a roadwreck.
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4 Comments
1. Chip Seiple:Claudia,
I consider myself smart, but not intelligent. But how much intelligence does one need before “negotiating w/ terrorists is like arguing w/ fools? At least have the military option on the table. Is Washington that stupid? Lefkowitz? Negotiating/diplomacy is a tried and true failure. [All terrorists are by nature, irrational].
“It is not possible to negotiate Peace w/ an enemy who only wants war and sees that you only want Peace”.
Have we tried giving them an autographed baseball of Barry Bonds?
Jan 19, 2008 - 4:03 am 2. Alex Reed:Just when events had branded the State Department denizens as the saddest collection of nerks on the planet, along comes Jay Lefkowitz, the unexpected exception to the rule. Perhaps just a puff of hope on the horizon, given the overall shambolic tenor of current U.S. foreign policy, but, nonetheless, his words are manna from unexpected realms of reason. Thank heavens for life’s little surprises!
Mr. Lefkowitz’s AEI presentation is laudable for its clear and thorough presentation of the realities of the North Korean situation and what it portends. His insistence on the inclusion of a human rights component in all discussions makes him a hero to me. No other State Department official has been willing to do any of this — all their heads being so firmly and deeply planted in the sand. They appear, only lately*, to be awakening hazily to the discovery of the uncomfortable perils of their position. The holistic plan that Mr. Lefkowitz puts before us has many merits. However, though I truly hate to have to say this because he’s such a mensch, and because I am in theoretical agreement with much of what he says, I find that his plan ultimately crashes on the hard rocks of other realities.
• “Its conduct does not appear to be that of a government that is willing to come in from the cold.”
After running through the catalogue of North Korea’s many transgressions over the years that the de-nuke talks have dragged on, Mr. Lefkowitz points out North Korea’s ties to various terrorist organizations for which it provides training and arms, and notes the ongoing nuclear proliferation enterprise with Iran and Syria. Mr. Lefkowitz than very sensibly comes to the above conclusion. And, indeed, why would Kim “come in from the cold”? He’s doing very nicely, thank you very much. His endless nuclear danzón with Chris Hill is his ticket into the big international flimflam racket, which, in turn, is his ticket to holding onto power in his own country.
If we go back in the time briefly, we can see that one crucial reason for the demise of communism in the Soviet Union was a leader who saw the change as inevitable, even desirable. As Margaret Thatcher put it, “I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business together.” Kim is no Gorby. Kim yearns to maintain the status quo — it’s a question of survival for him, it’s the terrain in which he runs his scams, makes his profits, and retains his power.
Mr. Lefkowitz looked at the facts and reasoned his way to the above statement. Then, he veered off the road of clear thinking. Did he loose his nerve in the face of the next stop in his reasoned chain of logic? Claudia didn’t lack the courage to stick to logical analysis of the situation, give her reasons, and draw a clear conclusion based on the reality before her: “My own view is that we should not be negotiating with North Korea at all….”
Somehow, I can’t help but think that Mr. Lefkowitz’s swift retreat from the reality before him was, instead, more based in what the French would call “la déformation professionelle”, his professional bent, his professional programming. Though he is a lawyer by profession (trial and appellate specialist), he has spent a lot of time laboring in the fields of diplomacy, and, as his AEI presentation shows, he is a keen student of diplomacy’s history and inner workings. So, I suppose it is only natural for him to opt for what he knows — the diplomatic solution.
However, his exposition of his Helsinki Option relies upon something the reality of the situation gravely lacks: Time. “We should now shift our focus from a short to a longer time frame.” Just as he noted the misplaced assumptions of the Burns?/Rice/Hill initiatives which doomed them to failure, so, unfortunately, his plan would fail because there is just not enough time for it to work.
• “It is increasingly likely that North Korea will have the same nuclear status one year from now that it has today.”
I think it’s important to make a distinction here. While North Korea’s “nuclear status” may well be the same in a year’s time (i.e., not disarmed and shut down), their nuclear capabilities will be far greater with the passage of time. Based on our past experience with North Korea, we cannot expect anything else. Kim’s regime has always moved ahead briskly with their nuclear development, no matter what the status of our negotiations or agreements. Emboldened by our limp and easily manipulated diplomacy, I would expect the North Korean nuclear effort to be zipping ahead at autobahn speeds now.
There is, in fact, mounting evidence that North Korea has expanded its consortium with Iran and Syria to speed nuclear development — think distributed computing. The IAF did not bomb an aspirin factory in Syria last September. Israeli analysts specializing in nuclear development (sorry, for the life of me, I can’t lay hands on the article at the moment. I’ll keep looking.), after careful examination of all the evidence including all satellite data, concluded that the Syrian facility was a nuclear bomb assembly plant. Further, it was not the only such facility in Syria…..
• “Constructive engagement can also include expanded foreign assistance, including humanitarian aid, to North Korea—provided it reaches those for whom it is intended. This is one area where the UN could play a constructive role.”
I have only one comment about this well-intentioned point: Oil-For-Food. Nothing has changed at the UN. Claudia has shown us around the vast caverns of UN corruption in a host of different areas. To embark upon such a scheme in North Korea, with the UN in charge, would be madness.
• “Much has been learned in the past four years since we entered the current phase of dialogue with North Korea. North Korea has not kept its word. (sic!)”
Even the brilliant Mr. Lefkowitz can be prone to diplomatic corps amnesia: North Korea has NEVER kept its word! They broke their promises to Bush I/Baker, they broke their word to Clinton/Albright, they lied to Bush/Powell, they are now lying and breaking promises to Rice/Hill. Isn’t diplomacy wonderful! When dealing with an erratic maniac dictator like Kim, survival requires total and constant recall of everything he’s ever done in the past, lest he put us through the same hoops over and over with increasingly dire consequences for the security of the world. He’s done just that up until now. And with each lap, while making all manner of promises he never had any intention of keeping, and while collecting the latest bonanza of extortion goodies, he has always kept on relentlessly with development of his nuclear capabilities and proliferation.
Time’s running out. Time to wake up.
……………………………………………….
Jan 22, 2008 - 8:41 pm 3. Richard:* Chris Hill said, before leaving Washington for yet another jaunt to Beijing, “We can’t have a situation where we pretend programs didn’t exist,” or “a process that goes forward on the basis of not being honest with each other”.
My question: With whom did he think he was dealing?
Once again, the NKrs, will be laughing at us before the ink dries. How about breaking all diplomatic relations with them? Until they:
A) Start realllllly doing something about their own starving people and human rights.
B) End their nuclear ambitions.
Jan 23, 2008 - 12:19 pm 4. Christopher:Claudia,
Jan 23, 2008 - 2:16 pmQuestion. Where does the President figure in this personnel mess at State Department? When a president enters office how many high ranking employees can he replace?
He should be able to replace as many employees as he needs to get the job done. He should be able to relieve, or send each of his GS-13 employees into a closet with a typewriter. Then replace them with people who see eye to eye with America’s interests.
Bush is now too tired to undertake the major changes that need to be made at Foggy Bottom. Almost as bad: Rice has no more energy than her boss; she should have been relieved two years ago.
Thus nothing much will happen to engergize the State Department until next administration.
But, should a Republican take over in 2008 what are his chances of staffing the top 300 positions in Foggy with John Bolton types?
Christopher Burchfield