Gregg and Oberdorfer Are Wrong on North Korea Policy
by Richardson ~ September 5th, 2006. Filed under: Engagement, North Korea, Nuclear Proliferation, Six-Party Talks, U.S.-Korea Relations, Washington Views.Donald Gregg, formerly a CIA station chief in Seoul and also a one-time U.S. ambassador to ROK, and Don Oberdorfer, a long time reporter on East Asia, have a new WaPo op-ed on the Bush administration’s North Korea policy.
As I wrote before, they essentially represent “the Establishment” view on North Korea, which can basically be summarized as “negotiation above all else.”
They are long on the criticism about the current administration’s tough stance toward Kim Jong-il’s regime. Frankly, I don’t agree with everything the administration does, and it is easy to criticize it so long as one does not have to offer a more efficacious counter-proposal for dealing with North Korea.
But at least the administration recognizes the futility of negotiating with North Korea in good faith. They understand that the pro-engagement establishment view only brought the failed 1994 Agreed Framework, notwithstanding the recently vigorous (and unfortunatley successful) efforts at revisionism by Clintonistas.
Predictably, Gregg and Oberdorder have no alternative policy proposals, save the following:
The only path to success with North Korea is negotiation, which President Bush and others have endorsed on many occasions. What is needed is sustained engagement to persuade Pyongyang to return to the regional talks and cease its confrontational actions — not new sanctions that will make such a course even more difficult.
And the evidence for this idea that negotiations with North Korea will lead to an earnest solution to the proliferation and other dangers from North Korea is where?
The fact is that there is no magic solution to the North Korea problem. The regime, for its own sense of survival, will not reform or join the mythical “community of nations” at any price. Negotiations are, as have been demonstrated repeatedly, futile. Unfortunately, other potential solutions for the problem are not exactly palatable.
Sanctions and financial freezes may not be the regime-killer, but they at least constrain the actions of North Korea’s rulers and exact some cost for their misbehavior. They have some, albeit limited, practical effect.
On the other hand, there is some evidence that the U.S. can make North Korea flinch first in the international game of chicken (and with China, for that matter). But this kind of credibility requires some political backbone, some grit and persistence, and they are, unfortunately, the very qualities that are being eroded by the continuing appeasement and defeatist talk emanating from the Establishment and the likes of Ambassador Gregg and Mr. Oberdorfer.
September 6th, 2006 at 1:43 am
Quite frankly, I believe that Messrs. Gregg and Oberdorfer never successfully recovered from their being picked on by the bullies in the schoolyard when they were youngsters.
It’s out and out depressing to have to read their screeds.
September 6th, 2006 at 9:33 am
I honestly can’t stand to read these things anymore. It is too much a frustrating waste of time and hopeless.
Everybody just plays politics. Really.
For I don’t know how long, the key to a presidential election cycle is to avoid mentioning your policies and above all avoid mentioning details. You can avoid alienating a block of voters that way, and you limit the amount of material your advesary can use against you. Conversely, what is good campaign strategy is to attack your opponent at every turn and especially say his policies will hurt the nation.
And that is the trend too many in journalism and surface academia practice as well.
We are living in a Derridian public discourse: deconstruction is the only purpose and tool. Not (re)construction.
Criticizing without a viable alternative is not just acceptable, it is the overwhelming norm.
And it is a waste of time.
And a more understandable problem at work: people like this just can’t seem to shrug their shoulders and say, “I don’t know.”
That’s probably the hardest sentence for educated people to utter. “I don’t know.” Especially people like this who have had a career finding solutions and working out problems. It just isn’t in their nature to admit — there is no acceptable solution.
September 6th, 2006 at 10:00 am
They forget the simple fact that it is North Korea alone who is rejecting talks and who walked away from the Sept 19 accord that represents the best deal they’ll ever get.
September 6th, 2006 at 10:44 am
how many times does it take to get burned and burned again?
September 6th, 2006 at 10:53 am
I think Slim hits the nail on the head, and I’ll go one further: the compulsion to retreat from confrontation knows no limit. If Kim Jong Il had accepted — then immediately repudiated and boycotted — President Al Gore’s best offer, they would still demand that we throw in more concessions.
But I suppose I’d throw in Tokdo if he’d allow Red Cross visits at Camp 22.
September 6th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
Nothing within the realm of reality will make North Korea “deal” (i.e. diplomacy isn’t always the right answer). It’s too bad some otherwise smart people can’t get that.
September 6th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
They are not willy-nilly people, to be sure (esp. Gregg who had tough CIA assignments all over), so I think the defeatist talk comes out of ideological and perhaps personal enmity toward the hawks in administration (and possibly the president himself) rather than any personal weaknesses.
Wiki reports (link in the original entry) that Gregg served with Bush, Sr. and is actually a friend of his.
A lot of knife sharpening and backstabbing going on between Bush 41 and 43 loyalists, apparently. It’s mostly over Iraq, but it’s also spilling into other areas.
September 7th, 2006 at 7:58 am
Then what do you suggest or how do yo suggest we take out Mr Kim? Might not heavy sanctions and freezes push the country to crack and assplode, causing more damage tnan anyone can repair?
September 7th, 2006 at 11:55 am
See Richardson’s “When North Korea Falls“:
September 8th, 2006 at 12:15 am
Gregg and Oberdorfer are right. Both of them are experts who understand the two Koreas better than anyone in the Bush Admin.
Trying to isolate NK and Iran has not improved the situation. It’s time for extensive negotiations. Unfortunately, the Bush Admin. is worse than useless in negotiations, so that job will have to be done by the next President.