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POLITICS-US: Playing the Hawk with North Korea
Analysis by John Feffer
SEOUL, Jun 30 (IPS) - If the Obama administration needed a rogue nation to demonstrate its foreign
policy resolve, central casting couldn’t have supplied a better candidate than
North Korea. The government in Pyongyang routinely promises to unleash
destruction of biblical proportions on its enemies. It has pulled out of
international agreements, such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It
has sentenced two U.S. journalists to 12 years of hard labour on the charge of
violating its borders. And after conducting two nuclear tests, it now declares
itself a nuclear power.
President Barack Obama - conciliatory in his handshake with Hugo Chavez of
Venezuela and his messages to the Muslim world - ca not appear too soft in
the foreign policy world. Democratic presidents are notoriously susceptible to
conservative charges of being weak on defence. North Korea can now
function as the ‘heavy’ that brings out the administration’s ‘tough guy’ side.
To demonstrate its hawkish credentials, the administration has corralled the
U.N. Security Council to issue a strong statement in response to North
Korea’s April rocket launch and an even stronger resolution condemning the
May nuclear test. The U.S. has established a naval interdiction regime around
North Korea. It has reaffirmed its promise to South Korea to strike North
Korea with nuclear weapons if it attacks the South. It has appointed a new
envoy to coordinate financial sanctions against the North and pressure
countries to implement them.
These moves are still not enough for congressional hardliners. "I think that
the President comes across as lacking resolve," says Representative Sam
Johnson (Republican from Texas). Even more seasoned foreign policy
mandarins, like former Defence Secretary William Perry, have urged the
administration to consider a military response as part of a series of
escalations.
In the foreign policy equivalent of the film ‘Groundhog’s Day’, the Obama
administration is facing the same crisis as its predecessors and making the
same mistakes. Like the George W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations, the
Obama team came into office unprepared to deal with Pyongyang. North
Korea was not a foreign policy priority, and all three administrations acted as
if they expected the problem could resolve itself.
Obama, at least, did not start out on a hostile footing.
With a general emphasis on the importance of diplomacy, the new
administration appeared willing to talk with North Korea. The relatively
speedy appointment of Korean hand Stephen Bosworth as special envoy on
North Korea and his offer to go to Pyongyang boded well. It turned out,
however, that Bosworth’s offer was conditional: he would go to Pyongyang if
it did not go ahead with its April rocket launch.
Iran, which launched a satellite only a few months before, merited no such
requirement.
Now, with the Six Party Talks in a coma and an escalation dynamic in place,
the Obama administration is grasping at straws. It is attempting the same
containment policy that failed during the Bush and Clinton years: squeezing
North Korea through financial sanctions, a military cordon, and political
condemnations.
It has been more successful than past administrations in eliciting Chinese
support, in part because China’s patience with its erstwhile ally has frayed to
the snapping point. But Washington fails to understand that Beijing’s
influence over Pyongyang is limited - and this influence declines the more the
U.S. pushes it to be openly critical of Pyongyang.
The Obama administration’s hawkish turn is counterproductive. The naval
interdiction, particularly if the U.S. decides to attempt to board North Korean
ships on the high seas, could lead to open conflict. The financial sanctions
will either prove ineffectual - as North Korea buys what it needs from China
and elsewhere - or produce unintended consequences as the country steps
up its efforts to acquire hard currency through illegal means.
The Obama administration would be wise to review the record of engagement
with North Korea: quickly and dispassionately. Hard-line policies have only
made Pyongyang more intransigent. Diplomacy, on the other hand, has
achieved concrete results.
The first nuclear crisis with North Korea ended with the visit of high-level
envoy Jimmy Carter to Pyongyang. The Clinton administration was sceptical of
the strategy; yet Carter knew that the North Korean leadership would respond
to a visit by a former U.S. president. Those discussions produced the 1994
Agreed Framework, which froze North Korea’s plutonium program for eight
years.
The second major crisis with North Korea, which culminated with the
country’s first nuclear test in 2006, ended with bilateral discussions between
top negotiator Chris Hill and his North Korean counterparts - producing the
Six Party Talks agreements of February 13, 2007, which led to dismantling
70-80 percent of the Yongbyon nuclear complex.
Over the last 15 years, North Korea has backtracked on its commitments and
hedged its bets. But the U.S., too, has reneged.
We never built the light-water nuclear reactors promised in the Agreed
Framework. We removed North Korea formally from the terrorism list, but
attached verification requirements that were not part of the original
agreement. We promised steps toward diplomatic recognition but have largely
failed to take them. Our allies promised heavy fuel oil but did not deliver the
full amount.
The Obama administration - and the international community - is
understandably appalled at North Korea’s actions. Condemning, sanctioning,
and cordoning off the country might be all satisfying and politically
expedient tactics. But these responses have not proven effective in the past.
Arms control, on the other hand, has worked with North Korea. To achieve a
viable agreement with North Korea, we must negotiate in good faith. And
that means being prepared to offer North Korea a political, economic, and
security package that we can deliver in exchange for their denuclearisation.
Whether North Korea will ever give up its single bargaining chip is unknown.
But the world was undeniably a safer place with North Korea negotiating at
the table rather than experimenting at the nuclear test site.
The sooner the Obama administration demonstrates its diplomatic resolve -
as opposed to its hawkish resolve - the sooner it can extricate itself from
both the mistaken policies of its predecessors and the worsening crisis in
Northeast Asia.
(END/2009)
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