Solecism at New York Japan Society: North Korea: the US, Japan, and South Korea

On Thursday morning 6 August 2009 as part of Japan Society series of discussions in New York, a distinguished panel of experts me to discuss the challenges facing the US, Japan, and South Korea by North Korea. Sponsored in conjunction with Mansfield Foundation, Alicia Ogawa, former investment banker, director of the Foundation, chaired the 90 minute meeting. L. Gordon Flake of the Foundation, Robert Carlin formerly of KEDO, and analyst at the CIA, and Evans Revere, former senior State Department official and current president of the New York based Korea Society made up the panel.
Before looking at remarks of theirs, the turnout on such a hot ticket item of moment, wot, with Citizen Clinton's 20 hours visit to Pyongyang and his return to California with the two pardoned reporters sentenced to 12 years of hard labour, was rather disappointing. Not to lose face, Japan Society papered the session with students taking Japanese, who filled to capacity the room.
With such a high profile panel, the questions were straight forward. America's perception of Kim Jong il; the future of negotiations with the DPRK; in sum, the questions normally broached when talking about North Korea. Only at the end did it occur to Ogawa to ask about the view from Seoul, Tokyo, and yes, Beijing.
Flake and Revere more or less took a narrow view of the current state of affairs between the US and North Korea. Carlin, bless him, offered a breath of fresh air. He went straight to the heart of the matter by saying as things stand Washington's tack towards Pyongyang is as though it had leapt from an aeroplane without a parachute, and was in free fall, where it would land is anyone's guess. Yet, he was not in despair.
Flake and Revere read from the same script more or less. For Flake the more conventional of the panelists, the DPRK would never be recognised as a nuclear power; it had agreed to denuclearise, and what's more had to return to a multiparty venue to iron out differences, and more to the point never would the US agree to bilateral negotiations, which, to him, meant wiggling out of past obligations.
Revere in diplomatic speak kept referring to new positions of put forth by North Korea were 'unacceptable' and it should be told that up front, more or less. Revere's position is rather unsettling from a man who worked through back channels with the DPRK on Citizen Clinton's 'visite eclaire' to Pyongyang, and who heads an 'NGO' who favours engagement not confrontation with Pyongyang, and has helped arranged programmes for scholars and students from the DPRK to study in the US or the New York Philharmonic to go to Pyongyang. Old State Department habits die hard, it seems.
Revere has good contacts with North Koreans, so you would think he might have a more nuanced understanding of North Korea's new proposals for direct talks. Flake too is no stranger to talks with North Koreans, but he too is wired to older attitudes. And here the wise old analyst Carlin puts his finger into the puffery of received wisdom. Negotiations mean discussions and discussions mean setting forth positions and looking for common ground of understanding, to say the bare minimum. Flake and Revere do not see this at all. They are imbued with a sense that what the US says and thinks is right. And it is in this sense, Guam Diary can label the discussions as an exercise in solecism and yet another example of Uncle Sam throwing around its weight at the wrong time.
Since no one really talked of the unacceptability of North Korea's position. The three panelist thought the Obama administration's position was more reactive not proactive. Well it depends on which end of the telescope you're looking through, doesn't it? President Obama [BHO] & co's tack is a little of the two. Let's quickly review the 8 month history of the US and the DPRK. As is well know Pyongyang is not easy to deal with, but BOH played hardball when the DPRK after giving advanced warning of its long range missile launch of a satellite, found Washington's 'order' to call it off the moment. It didn't, and seemingly BOH & co. seeing this as a slap in the face, immediately seized the UN Security Council calling for sanctions against the DPRK, for violating on spurious grounds resolution 1718. Well, Kim Jong il's response was quick and immediate. Vote sanctions and we're going to restart our nuclear programme, test short, medium, and long range missiles. The US arm twisted the Council so that no one cast a veto and unanimously sanctions passed. Pyongyang upped the ante by saying that it had abandoned for good the six party confab in Beijing and as a slap in the face, tore up the 1953 Armistice agreement, potentially turning a frozen war into a hot one. To stick it to the US, the DPRK on 26 May 2009 set off a powerful underground explosion which according to 'Science' and 200 global sensors, including one in South Korea, bore no traces of radioactive fallout. This sent Washington back to the Security Conauncil for more sanctions, put forth in another resolution 1859[sic] calling for freezing North Korean assets abroad, boarding DPRK vessels on the high seas, etc. Pyongyang responded any attempt to stop its vessels in international waters, it regarded as a 'causus belli', grounds for war. aAnd thereafter the tensions between Washi ngton and Pyongyang grew more taut and menacing. Not only did Kim Jong il & co. reject returning to Beijing for multilateral talks, it called for direct negotiations, and recognition as a nuclear power. These new demands cut to the heart of BOH's strategy: relying on China to do its own dirty work, and isolling for sanctions against the DPRK, for violating on spurious grounds resolution 1718. Well, Kim Jong il's response was quick and immediate. Vote sanctions and we're going to restart our nuclear programme, test short, medium, and long range missiles. The US arm twisted the Council so that no one cast a veto and unanimously sanctions passed. Pyongyang upped the ante by saying that it had abandoned for good the six party confab in Beijing and as a slap in the face, tore up the 1953 Armistice agreement, potentially turning a frozen war into a hot one. To stick it to the US, the DPRK on 26 May 2009 set off a powerful underground explosion which according to 'Science' and 200 global sensors, including one in South Korea, bore no traces of radioactive fallout. This sent Washington back to the Security Conauncil for more sanctions, put forth in another resolution 1859[sic] calling for freezing North Korean assets abroad, boarding DPRK vessels on the high seas, etc. Pyongyang responded any attempt to stop its vessels in international waters, it regarded as a 'causus belli', grounds for war. And thereafter the tensions between Washington and Pyongyang grew more taut and menacing. Further mor the DPRK restated its demands, calling for direct talks with Washington and vowing never to return to multiparty talks in Beijing. In one stroke of a pen, it knocked pins out of BOH's strategy for relying on China to do its dirty work with Pyongyang, and challenged Washington's hard line common front with an agressive South Korea and Japan.
And yet the DPRK had a card to play which it did. Two US journalists violating North Korean territory in pursuit of a story on refugees, found themselves arrested, tried, and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor. Herein lies a tale of Citizen Clinton's unexpected trip to the DPRK.
And here BOH & co. take refuge in the myth, Clinton's trip was divorced from any ties to the White House, in spite of the fact that BOH's fingerprint was all over Mr Clinton's mission of mercy.
BOH & co. are insisting on a return to the disavowed six party talks in Beijing, repeating stern warnings, and ostensibly talking to Kim Jong il as though he were not the head of a sovereign country; a brief Pyongyang has with Washington about not being treated as an equal.
Which brings us back to Robert Carlin's spot on observation that BHO has no follow up strategy and is in free fall. Which means if the DPRK doesn't step back, we're in for a jolly war! Or so it seems. Flake and Revere and so imbued with a white streak of America's self righteous and exceptionalism, that it does come to their mind to find out and probe more about North Korea's thinking. Which again we come back to Carlin's clearsightedness, about the nature of negotiations, probing, so on and on. Both Flake and Revere violate, it seems to Guam Diary, the advice of Talleyrand who counselled 'pas trop de zele' in diplomacy.
And here Guam Diary will stop. Citizen Clinton did convery a message from BHO to Kim Jong il. For the moment everyone waits to see the results of Clinton's trip. But time is not on Washington's side.