The big new GOP talking point is that we should ignore George W. Bush's massive and evident policy failures in North Korea and instead . . . blame Bill Clinton who hasn't been in office in six years and under whose administration the DPRK wasn't building nuclear bombs. Fred Kaplan lays the smack down.
« The Libertarian Vote | Main | Community of Democracies »
Blaming Bill
12 Oct 2006 11:08 am
Comments (27)
Apparently, matt, the NY Times does not share your opinion:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/us/politics/11politics.html?ex=1318219200&en=44718e8336bca1a1&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
" Under an agreement Mr. Clinton struck with North Korea in 1994, the North agreed to “freeze” its production of plutonium at its main nuclear plant at Yongbyon, in return for energy aid. North Korea abided by the freeze.
But starting around 1997, the North Koreans took steps to start a second, secret nuclear program, one based on enriching uranium. South Korean and American intelligence agencies did not find conclusive evidence of that program until the summer of 2002, and that fall the Bush administration confronted the North Koreans with its evidence. "
Thought experiment - swap the names - Bush signed the Agreed Framework, and Clinton confronted NoKo in 2002 - I would bet you would say "Bush made a stupid, unenforceable agreement that did nothing to improve the security of the US, and Clinton confronted NoKo as soon as our analysts had evidence of the violation."
So yes, I would say that there is enough blame for both Presidents. One (Bush) for not dealing with it sooner, and being distracted by the Iraq war, the other (Clinton) for signing a very stupid agreement that clearly did nothing to deter North Korea from their experiments.
after 6 years, it should be obvious to everyone that this administration refuses responsibility for everything.
jb wrote:
"But starting around 1997, the North Koreans took steps to start a second, secret nuclear program..."
Other than a full-scale military assault, what steps could have been taken to prevent a secret program? It was, by definition, secret, and this regime (or any regime for that matter) could pursue this path again at any time. The Agreed Framework at least deterred their main enrichment program and provided a basis for continued dialogue. In my view, that beats sitting on your hands for 6 years.
South Korean and American intelligence agencies did not find conclusive evidence of that program until the summer of 2002
So JP, you think Clinton should have known NK was breaking the deal even though he had no conclusive evidence? I suppose you support the Iraq War as well...
While everyone, Clinton, Bush and Kim Jungle are to blame a bit for the present day situation, there was nothing wrong with the deal itself. This is the same type of deal that BUSH himself will have to put into place anyway, so what the fuck are you whining about?
Matthew: "What congress has done now is to permanently eliminate habeas for citizen "Bill Clinton who hasn't been in office in six years and under whose administration the DPRK wasn't building nuclear bombs".
Fred Kaplan: "Pyongyang officials admitted that they'd been enriching uranium—an alternative route (though much slower than plutonium) to getting a bomb."
Looks to me as though Kaplan proves Matthew wrong.
jb, your thought experiment fails: if bush had reached the agreed framework and clinton had scuttled it, leading to north korea's current status, i'd be blaming clinton, not bush.
but since reality is that clinton had an imperfect but functional policy, whereas bush has an imperfect but dysfunctional policy, we blame bush correctly.
al, "enriching" uranium isn't "building" bombs. you know that, so why do you play these word games?
Regarding the Agreed Framework, you would think that if you sign an agreement and then refuse to comply with it (as the US did), it shouldn't surprise you if the other side decides to violate it, too, wouldn't you?
"It should be noted that the bomb that the North Koreans set off on Sunday was apparently a plutonium bomb, not a uranium bomb. In other words, it was a bomb made entirely in Bush's time, not at all in Clinton's."
Darn those pesky Kaplan quotes.
Hmmm, howard. Kaplan says that enriching uranium is "an alternative route" to getting a bomb. If that's not part of the building process, then what would you count as "building" a bomb?
"It should be noted that the bomb that the North Koreans set off on Sunday was apparently a plutonium bomb"
Is this true? The reports I've seen emphasize a lack of detected gases to verify which type of bomb it was--but I could be out of date.
Also according to reports given to Congress, the CIA in 1998 believed that North Korea had at least one nuclear bomb.
Alon- so Kaplan describes the uranium path as a 'much slower' path to the bomb. How can you possibly use his article to discredit MY's position? Clinton initiates a deal and NoKo stops working on a bomb. Late in his second term, NoKo begins secret work on a long path to a bomb.
Bush takes office- he fumbles the diplomacy, NoKo abandons the agreed framework and pursues a faster route to the bomb and tests it during Bush's presidency. This is six years after Bush took office! Clinton stopped the NoKo plan that he had intelligence regarding. In 6 years Bush's efforts on NoKo did nothing but encourage them to pursue the bomb w/o having the ability to forcibly prevent them from getting it. That's a failed policy. But I don't say this for your benefit- you're not arguing in good faith and I don't expect you to recognize a legitimate argument. This is only for the bystanders.
Is this true? The reports I've seen emphasize a lack of detected gases to verify which type of bomb it was--but I could be out of date.
I thought I saw somewhere that China or France or somebody thought they had intelligence as to what kind of bomb it was.
And I'm also interested in when the gasses will be detected; hell, we don't even know if it really was a nuclear explosion.
Alon- so Kaplan describes the uranium path as a 'much slower' path to the bomb. How can you possibly use his article to discredit MY's position? Clinton initiates a deal and NoKo stops working on a bomb. Late in his second term, NoKo begins secret work on a long path to a bomb.
First of all, it wasn't "late in his second term". It was 1997. The first year of his second term.
Second of all, Matthew said flatly that NK was not building a bomb. But you yourself admit that they were secretly working on "a long path to a bomb." So I just don't see how what Matthew said can in any way be true.
I realize that to many Clinton is the gold standard of perfection, and any criticism of his administration must immediately be met with pushback. But really how hard is it to acknowledge that there are two routes to getting a nuclear bomb and while Clinton stopped Route A, the NKs simply then switched over to Route B? I mean, it's not any harder than admitting that when Bush told them we knew about their pursuit of Route B they just switched back to Route A.
Doesn't "enriching uranium" just mean "building nuclear bombs"? And doesn't that show how wrong you all are?
Something wrong... must make slightly more complicated. Hacker said I was smart... must prove him... right.
Growing wheat is part of the bread-baking process. Thus, when I drive by fields of wheat I tell my kids "Hey, look at all those farmers baking bread!"
It isn't so much that the plutonium route is a faster path to building an atomic bomb so much as it is a faster path to building 500 atomic bombs. The Clinton administration made the deal knowing full well that N. Korea could start (or might have even had) a secret uranium purification plant. It was still worthwhile. It limited N. Korea to the nuclear arsenal it could build with the secret plant.
The challenge of N. Korea is to allow it to collapse without bringing about the deaths of many millions of people. The Clinton plan was a useful contribution to that effort. Bush threw it away for a "gotcha" moment, designed more for domestic consumption than diplomatic leverage. If Bush had some useful plan which could have used the revelation of the secret plant as leverage, that would have been fine. But he didn't. He just wanted to preen and strut.
If there's one thing George Bush knows how to do, its preening and strutting.
Al's sorta right, but he is, as usual, using his rightness to distract from the substantive point being made.
Matthew said that "under [Clinton's] administration the DPRK wasn't building nuclear bombs." Al's correct that the process of enriching uranium, which was going on, was part of the effort to make a nuclear bomb, and should fairly be understood as contradicting this specific point.
But here's where it gets dicey. Under one president, we have DPRK building a nuclear bomb very slowly, under a process that is likely to create a much weaker bomb. Under the next president, we have DPRK with a plutonium bomb. It seems pretty clear whose foreign policy really failed.
Insofar as you can criticize Clinton for not preventing the enrichment of uranium, you are bound under that theory to far more strongly condemn Bush for not preventing the use of plutonium in the building of bombs.
The Clinton agreement was fine- until Rumsfeld sold the N Koreans two reactors that could be used to make uranium for weapons.
Bush has been in office over five years. That may be a little complicated for rightwing intellectuals to grasp, but I think the average guy understands it.
There's no doubt that if Bush hadn't been preoccupied with Iraq that we probably would have had a much different outcome in NoKo. Again, I will state that Bush is clearly significantly at fault for the situation.
Let's revisit the timeline:
Oct 2002 - We detect Agreed Framework shenanigans
Nov 2002 - US and 13 other nations cut off fuel to NoKo
Dec 2002 - NoKo shuts down the monitors and takes the Plutonium
I suppose what you guys are saying is that in Oct 2002 Bush should have said:
"Well, NoKo is building a nuclear program right now, but they're just using Uranium, so it will take them a while. Even though they've broken the Agreed framework, we don't want to provoke them into using the fuel rods to manufacture plutonium, so we'll just let them keep enriching that uranium, and we'll keep sending them oil."
That's the best possible case, based on hindsight, as far as I can tell (other than the fact that it would reinforce to the world that we "really don't mean it" when we specify condition for our foreign aid). The only problem is that now, 4 years later, they might still have managed to produce a uraniuim bomb.
I don't know about you, but that sounds a lot like a failed policy too. No?
If you take the argument from the right at face value "Clinton's deal with NK was a failure" then they are even more responsible. They supposedly knew this but they did nothing in the last 5 years about it.
" The only problem is that now, 4 years later, they might still have managed to produce a uraniuim bomb."
It isn't a matter of nuclear virginity. They had an atomic bomb during the first Bush (GHWB)administration. It was a plutonium bomb made after the fall of the USSR but before the first IAEA inspections ever happened. The problem is size of the arsenal and what they do with it.
Basically anyone with half a brain knew that 2002 was the time to hold our noses and negotiate.
Bush and co. thought they could ignore dealing with Kim Jong Il, invade Iraq and in the process so intimidate Iran and N. Korea that they would have no choice but to renounce their nuclear programs and accept America's terms for surrender.
North Korea called our bluff by kicking out the IAEA and removing the fuel rods from Yongbyon. They bet that Bush wasn't going to respond by bombing and they were right.
To act like this has anything to do with the HEU program (which as far as we know has produced zero weapons in 9 years) is ludicrous. Bush stuck his sand in the ground on this issue and any fallout (no pun intended) is his responsibility.
Of course, dodging responsibility and ignoring reality are what this administration does best...
Clinton's problem is that he didn't create an idiot-proof arrangement for keeping the plutonium out of NK's hands.
North Korea has gotten further in 6 years under Bush than in 8 years under Clinton. Nobody disputes this. And the worst part is that they actually tested their handiwork. And they tested it because Bush provoked them into it by trying to cut them off from the world banking community.
Doubtless this was the October surprise that Rove had promised. Too bad the American people care more about sex scandals than nuclear proliferation. But then Bush has shown more interest in sex (gay) than nuclear proliferation.
And by many accounts the NK test was a partial success at best. But finding out the flaws in their design is critical, and did not happen under Clinton. More nukes, and better tested under Bush. Judge them by results.
From the point of view of danger and technical prowess, NK looks infinitely smaller than any Soviet threat. No-one in America or Europe seems very concerned about it, other than as a political talking point. Maybe that's because deterrence works with state actors.
I read that Clinton got to the stage of discussing military strikes against NK before the appearance of the Agreement as if by magic. Bush hasn't come nearly so far yet.
What could and should both presidents have done better? Should Clinton have been more aggressive and pushed for a more watertight agreement? Is there such a thing as a watertight agreement in a state such as NK? Could military action have been taken without provoking all-out war? Would you have supported a second Korean War in 1994 or 1997? The same questions apply in 2002 with Bush coming fresh from the defeat of the Taliban - would a fresh and tighter agreement, backed up by a credible threat of military force, have solved anything?
Anyone seriously think that the outcome of war in 1994 or 2002 would be preferable to the present situation?
As for sanctions and embargos, they are about as effective as UN Resolutions at persuading totalitarian regimes to change course. They might work if the aim were to prevent the regime from acquiring certain materials, but the stable door is wide open on that front.
With the report today that sniffers failed to find evidence of radioactivity from the North Korean test, it becomes more likely that the test was a failure.
The test was certainly a reaction to Bush's provocations: trying to freeze NK out of world banking, calling Kim Jong-il a pygmy, refusal negotiate one-on-one, saber rattling and warmongering.
Now they will take the essential step of correcting the design. Thanks President Bush.
Comments closed October 26, 2006.
| 
Heads in the Sand
It makes perfect sense. Irresponsible means "not responsible", therefore George Bush is not responsible. If he isn't, somebody else must be. Clinton, as a responsible man, had a duty to implement policies that could withstand 8 years of incompetence and neglect from his successor.
Posted by Njorl | October 12, 2006 11:15 AM