Fool me twice, shame on The Miami Herald…

As one of the few remaining readers of the Herald (newspapers… remember those?), I’m shocked when I read editorials like the one today about North Korea. Less than a week ago, I reviewed Bush’s policy and recommended that the Obama administration not fall for the North Koreans’ extortion demands like so many past administrations have. Today, the Miami Herald puts out an editorial that urges the current administration to follow in the footsteps of the failed policies of Clinton and Bush II (second term). Let’s review again. Clinton offered millions in aid in exchange for a halt to their nuclear program. Result: North Korea keep their program going in secret, using much of this money for their military. Enter Bush, at first saying that we would not give in to nuclear blackmail and that we would suspend giving them aid because of their secret nuclear program (which North Korea admitted to having in October 2002) only to later, in his second term, agree to a similar aid-for-nuclear-freeze agreement after the North tests its first mini-atomic bomb. Result: North Korea has not fully complied, arrested American journalists on charges of espionage, threatened to destroy S. Korea, and is now planning missile tests in violation of U.N. resolutions. Here is a pretty thorough chronology of events. So what does the Miami Herald suggest? That the “U.S. should offer high-level dialogue if missile test is halted,” in other words, continue to give in to threats no matter the cost, no matter how often we look like fools for trusting them. Ridiculous.

On the other hand, though continual appeasement may be ridiculous, it is the most likely course of action given the current administrations inexperience and kumbaya mentality. I equate this type of “high-level dialogue” with appeasement because every time we dialogue with this regime, the United States loses and North Korea gets another lease on life. This type of dialogue requires that we ask them to back down from their threats, which only validates the strategy of threatening the U.S. Dialogue with N. Korea must be based on U.S. interests and policy in the region, not based on blackmail. Neither should we keep handing over aid for empty promises. The type of agreements and diplomacy that the U.S. has engaged in has been detrimental to our national security and global security.

To read that we should continue this policy because they are a threat to peace only reinforces the idea that we are not ready to engage in high-level dialogue with these belligerent rogue states, especially the type of bilateral talks that Kim wants. Even the list of what the editor believes to be North Korea’s desires is naïve, at the least (except for one). Let’s go through them:

• Normalization of relations – the only way to justify totalitarian rule under terrible economic conditions is to create a constant state of existential fear (that the U.S. will wipe them all out), normalization would open the door for U.S. pressure to democratize and increase local unrest, not something that Kim Jong Il would like
• Economic aid – okay, yes they want this.
• Security Assurances - they already feel confident that they can keep demanding and demanding and we will simply agree to whatever they want because we’re afraid of war or afraid of missile strikes on Japan or afraid of the utter destruction of Seoul or afraid that they will pass on nuclear secrets/materials/weapons to enemies/terrorists… nukes are the only security assurance they need, American promises of security means nothing in comparison
• Peace treaty – see above, siege mentality is the lifeblood of the Juche ideology (self-reliance) that justifies the Kim dynasty

N. Korea has already said that it would consider any sanctions adopted by the U.N. in case of a missile test to be a provocation which would jeopardize current nuclear negotiations. More blackmail. The problem with our reflexively dualistic approach to policy towards N. Korea is that many think that it’s either confrontation or dialogue. Neither has worked alone and sadly, dialogue has been discredited by the last two administrations. It’s disheartening that The Miami Herald sounds like Kim Jong Il himself when it prints “when North Korea acts up, attention must be paid.” As the sole superpower (for now), America must pay attention to all matters in the world, not simply because North Korea commands the world’s undivided attention. One decent result of Obama’s inexperience in foreign policy has been to leave Kim crying in the corner for the last few months, but it’s time to take a tougher stand with this rogue state. It must be a nuanced approach that balances confrontation and dialogue…

The Miami Herald should not be recommending that we give in to this totalitarian regime… or maybe this was one of the stories they lifted from the Communist Cuban News Agency.

-AG