North Korea-Syria: Banco Delta Asia Deja Vu
by Richardson ~ April 24th, 2008. Filed under: Diplomacy, Engagement, North Korea, Nuclear Proliferation, Six-Party Talks, Syria. A joint statement (DOC) was issued at the conclusion of the fourth round of Six-Party Talks in September, 2005 that “reaffirmed that the goal of the Six-Party Talks is the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner.” It was hailed, by most, as a great breakthrough in coaxing North Korea to sell give up its nuclear program(s). About ten days before that statement, a hint of the Banco Delta Asia (BDA) scandal was in the news, and in December 2005 the U.S. began blocking transactions of the Macau-based BDA.
While I thought it was the right thing to do (and believe we should never have lifted the related sanctions on North Korean banking), from a policy coordination standpoint, it seemed that the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing when it came to U.S. policy on North Korea.
Now there seems to be similar lack of coordination, or perhaps a behind-the-scenes struggle between the Department of State and the Intelligence Community over what North Korea policy ought to be.
First, State finally admitted, though not in so many word, to allowing North Korea to completely ignore any past agreements concerning a full declaration of nuclear programs and still reap the benefits:
The United States on Thursday for the first time admitted it was scaling back its demands on North Korea in a bid to break a diplomatic stalemate on ending Pyongyang’s nuclear arms drive. The top Asia hand at the US National Security Council [said] proliferation issues would be “handled in a different manner.”
Not long after that capitulation was revealed, it was learned that intelligence officials would be briefing congress on the North Korea-Syria nuclear tie:
A nuclear reactor in Syria was weeks or months away from being functional when it was bombed by Israel last year, a senior U.S. official told CNN Thursday. “That’s what the intelligence suggests,” said the official…
The White House had no comment:
The White House Wednesday stonewalled questions about news reports that the CIA will soon tell key U.S. lawmakers that North Korea secretly provided nuclear know-how to Syria.
Who’s at the wheel?
NightWatch poses the real question:
This is an intelligence game that begs the question why Syria would pay for 50–year old technology that has yet to show it can work? The Yongbyon reactor is old technology that the North Koreans have kept limping along long past its useful life, which is normal for North Korea… The Syrian military relationship with North Korea is decades old and has centered on the sale of Scud missiles, support systems and the technology to make them… Nevertheless, that does not explain why Syria would purchase 1950’s era nuclear technology.
April 24th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Aside from the State-DOD-Intel Community divides, there are differences among factions within the White House.
There is definitely a neo-realist (in this case, effectively accomodationist) faction. There is still a dyning remnant of the feisty “neo-con” faction that advocates rollback (regarding not just North Korea, but also Iran).
Ever since the beginning of the second term, the accomodationists have been ascendant at the W White House. The latest revelations about the North Korean-Syrian cooperation and, more importantly, the US government reaction to the same have again confirmed for me that the accomodationists and the “Bush presidential legacy” folks have taken over the White House.
The accomodationists want “stability” everywhere so that the lameduck administration can concenrate on improving Iraq and, by all means, not leaving it in a bad shape to W’s successor. Because Iraq is everything to W’s legacy, they are willing to purchase “stability” in regards to problems like North Korea and Iran. Unfortunately, such purchases tend to be short-term fixes as we saw with the Agreed Framework 1.0.
April 25th, 2008 at 7:55 am
[…] along with possibly Christopher Hill resigning. Richardson over at DPRK Studies is wondering who is at the wheel of coordinating American policy with North […]
April 25th, 2008 at 9:36 am
To shed a bit of light on the question of why Syria would opt for 1950’s tech: was speaking to International Crisis Group about this and the analyst pointed out one of North Korea’s main comparative advantages in the global market: discretion(i.e. secrecy).
Perhaps Syria thought NK was the best contractor to handle this secretly. This analyst said one of the key reasons NK cannot just simply declare the Syria affair is that it would scare off NK’s client list of weapons and missile purchasers. They would figure their jig might be up soon, too.
April 27th, 2008 at 9:08 am
James,
I find parts of both the “neo-realist” and “neo-con” to be useful in general, but the “neo-realist” approach is demonstrated to be worse than useless in dealing with North Korea. My guess is that it will be a couple of decades before W’s legacy is clear - if Iraq will eventually lead to a more stable M.E., or a less stable one.
Seoulk,
While NK may keep things secret, someone in Syria must have been sampling some of NK’s drug wares to think they could create a nuclear reactor under the watchful eyes of the Israelis. Reprocessing plutonium is also relatively easy to detect. The old tech, I think, refers to the fact that NK has not demonstrated it can build a successful implosion device (i.e., a plutonium based atom bomb).