The bottom line: tough talk from the United States and the United Nations failed to do the trick.
North Korean conducted a nuclear test anyway, and there are even a few suggestions another one will be on the way.
And what can and will the U.S. and the United Nations do? The bottom line again: not much to actually reverse the situation or remove the threat — except symbolic measures.
The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler:
North Korea’s apparent nuclear test last night may well be regarded as a failure of the Bush administration’s nuclear nonproliferation policy.
Since George W. Bush became president, North Korea has restarted its nuclear reactor and increased its stock of weapons-grade plutonium, so it may now have enough for 10 or 11 weapons, compared with one or two when Bush took office.
North Korea’s test could also unleash a nuclear arms race in Asia, with Japan and South Korea feeling pressure to build nuclear weapons for defensive reasons.
Yet a number of senior U.S. officials have said privately that they would welcome a North Korean test, regarding it as a clarifying event that would forever end the debate within the Bush administration about whether to solve the problem through diplomacy or through tough actions designed to destabilize North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s grip on power.
So…sometimes wishes do come true.
Selig Harrison, writing in Newsweek, suggests the North Korean nuclear test is a direct result Bush administration miscalculations and diplomatic ineptness that constituted a virtual provocation:’
On Sept. 19, 2005, North Korea signed a widely heralded denuclearization agreement with the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea. Pyongyang pledged to “abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs.” In return, Washington agreed that the United States and North Korea would “respect each other’s sovereignty, exist peacefully together and take steps to normalize their relations.”
Four days later, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sweeping financial sanctions against North Korea designed to cut off the country’s access to the international banking system, branding it a “criminal state” guilty of counterfeiting, money laundering and trafficking in weapons of mass destruction.
The Bush administration says that this sequence of events was a coincidence. Whatever the truth, I found on a recent trip to Pyongyang that North Korean leaders view the financial sanctions as the cutting edge of a calculated effort by dominant elements in the administration to undercut the Sept. 19 accord, squeeze the Kim Jong Il regime and eventually force its collapse. My conversations made clear that North Korea’s missile tests in July and its threat last week to conduct a nuclear test explosion at an unspecified date “in the future” were directly provoked by the U.S. sanctions. In North Korean eyes, pressure must be met with pressure to maintain national honor and, hopefully, to jump-start new bilateral negotiations with Washington that could ease the financial squeeze. When I warned against a nuclear test, saying that it would only strengthen opponents of negotiations in Washington, several top officials replied that “soft” tactics had not worked and they had nothing to lose.
It was no secret to journalists covering the September 2005 negotiations, or to the North Koreans, that the agreement was bitterly controversial within the administration and represented a victory for State Department advocates of a conciliatory approach to North Korea over proponents of “regime change” in Pyongyang. The chief U.S. negotiator, Christopher Hill, faced strong opposition from key members of his own delegation at every step of the way.
Note: if you read Bob Woodward’s new book you’ll also read about the constant tug between the State Department and the hard-liners in the Bush administration, with the hard liners (generally being seen as being in the Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld camps) usually winning out.
President George Bush has condemned the test. So has the UN Security Council. Switzerland. South Africa. And China.
Russia has too, but with a double-edged message:
The measures proposed by the United States in a draft UN Security Council resolution following North Korea’s nuclear test do not include the use of force against the country, a Russian diplomat said Monday.
Pyongyang earlier announced that it had conducted an underground nuclear test in defiance of a UN Security Council statement urging it to give up nuclear test plans and return to disarmament talks, and earlier international warnings.
“There is no mention of the use of force [in the proposal],” Russia’s envoy to the UN Vitaly Churkin said.
The diplomat said that Russia supported a pragmatic approach to a draft UN resolution on the reclusive communist state.
“We must not act on emotion,” Churkin said, although Russian President Vladimir Putin had earlier strongly criticized the Communist regime’s nuclear test and urged country’s leadership to return to the six-nation nuclear talks.
And there was this:
The Kremlin press office said Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush “share a view that North Korea’s ostentatious action undermines the non-proliferation regime, and stress the need for coordinated action to resolve the issue.”
Earlier on Monday, Putin said: “Russia absolutely condemns the test in North Korea, which has inflicted great damage on the non-proliferation process.” He also urged Pyongyang to return to disarmament talks.
And since it’s election year some reactions were predictable.
Administration supporters did what they often do: they blamed former President Bill Clinton. Front Page magazine:
The Dear Leader’s nuclear test could not have occurred without Bill Clinton’s decade of dalliance. Clinton could have obliterated the Yongbyong reactor with one strike when he first learned of North Korea’s covert nuclear program in 1994. Instead, he allowed Jimmy Carter’s private foreign policy to preempt him. Upon completing the “Agreed Framework� in 1994, Clinton stated, “This agreement will help achieve a vital and long-standing American objective: an end to the threat of nuclear proliferation on the Korean peninsula.� We now know the $4.6 billion bribe gave the Communists the two nuclear reactors they used to create their current arsenal.
If the Left’s policies allowed Stalinists to arm, they left Americans defenseless. The Democratic Party has defined its defense policy in opposition to the concept of defense. For more than two decades, the Democratic Party has worked in concert to block any missile defense program and castigated those who tried to shield the United States from a doomsday device.
Of course, one problem is: Bill Clinton has not been President for the past six years. And the Bush administration has come under fire for its approach on North Korea policies) for some time on North. Bill Scher writing on The Huffington Post:
The neocons want regime change in North Korea, in an attempt to constrict the rise of China. And they see any deal as helping the North Korea dictator remain in power.
After initially suspending talks with North Korea, and unraveling the diplomatic progress made by the Clinton Administration, the Bushies then agreed to “six-party” talks.
But the move was not intended to make new diplomatic progress. It was intended to make the Bushies look like they tried diplomatic avenues, when in fact, they made no serious proposals.
We can now see the results of this so-called “hard-line” strategy. A nuclear North Korea. A greater risk of more nuclear proliferation. A more unstable world.
Israel’s Debka File says the nuclear test greatly undermines regional stability and points to the lingering threat from Iran:
The underground nuclear explosion North Korea carried out early Monday, Oct. 9, confronts US president George W. Bush with one problem that has run out of control and another, Iran’s nuclear program, which soon will.
The European-Russian-Chinese insistence on diplomacy with Iran – no sanctions, no military action – is close to reaching the same dead end as did the talks with North Korea conducted by the US, Japan, China, Russia and South Korea. The negotiators who condemn North Korea today were deaf to Kim Jong Il’s assertions of intent. He used the time fruitfully to drive forward to target. Iran is not there yet – but Tehran is using the current climate of international passivity to race ahead to the point of no return.
As recently as late July, when North Korea tested its nuclear-capable Taepodong ballistic missiles which can reach Alaska, the Bush administration warned Pyongyang not to fire any more, else the American navy would be ordered to intercept them.
Washington’s response went no further than words….As a result, the United States, Japan and South Korea now find themselves within range of a North Korean nuclear missile attack.
The questions: what can the U.S. do and what will it do? What can the UN do and what will it do?
Will anything the U.S. or UN tries to do matter? And will this influence policy towards Iran and/or will any policy towards Iran be influenced, bolstered or undercut by the upcoming elections will a large segment of Americans will be cynical about any governnment actions taken before the votes are cast? There are already claims that some may be happy this wipes domestic scandals off the front pages.
FOR SOME OTHER VIEWS ON THIS EVENT READ:
Ed Morrissey, Talking Points Memo, Glenn Reynolds, The Washington Note, Michelle Malkin (has A LOT of info and links) and answers whether the US is within range HERE, Democrats.com, Right Wing Nut House, Kevin Drum, Pajamas Media, Daily Kos, The Glittering Eye, Blogs For Bush and on options here, Glenn Greenwald, Wizbang wonders about another test, Matt Yglesias, Roger Simon, James Joyner, Taylor Marsh, Steven Taylor, Winds of Change
UPDATE: More reactions here.
SOME OTHER NEWS STORIES AND ARTICLES:
North Korea Test A Sign Of Weakness
UN Will Consider Sanctions
China’s Hu condemns N.Korea, counsels calm
Bush’s Blunder In North Korea
Background On North Korea
US Suggests Interdiction Of North Korean Cargo
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.