Obama Getting Tough on North Korea?
[Posted by Karl]
That is what the New York Times would have us believe in advance of today’s visit from South Korea’s president, Lee Myung-bak, a conservative who has been far more confrontational in his dealings with North Korea than most of his predecessors:
The Obama administration will order the Navy to hail and request permission to inspect North Korean ships at sea suspected of carrying arms or nuclear technology, but will not board them by force, senior administration officials said Monday.
***
The planned American action stops just short of the forced inspections that North Korea has said that it would regard as an act of war. Still, the administration’s plans, if fully executed, would amount to the most confrontational approach taken by the United States in dealing with North Korea in years, and carries a risk of escalating tensions at a time when North Korea has been carrying out missile and nuclear tests.
The usual anonymous officials said that they believed that China would also enforce the new sanctions, which (again, if true) suggests the administration seized the opportunity presented by Kim Jong Il’s latest lunacies. The Obama administration is also selling the notion that a tougher line on North Korea has been in the works for some time:
Mr. Obama’s decisions about North Korea stem from a fundamentally different assessment of the North’s intentions than that of previous administrations. Nearly 16 years of on-and-off negotiations — punctuated by major crises in 1994 and 2003 — were based on an assumption that ultimately, the North was willing to give up its nuclear capability.
A review, carried out by the Obama administration during its first month in office, concluded that North Korea had no intention of trading away what it calls its “nuclear deterrent” in return for food, fuel and security guarantees.
***
The result is that Mr. Obama, in his first year in office, is putting into effect many of the harshest steps against North Korea that were advocated by conservatives in the Bush White House, including Vice President Dick Cheney.
(That would be the same Dick Cheney recently smeared by Obama’s CIA chief. It’s a Small World, as annoying Disneybots like to say.)
If true, the Times story raises the question of why Obama remains hell bent on chatting up the Iranian theocracy, whose divinely annoited despot has vowed never to negotiate about Iran’s nuclear program. The answer cannot be public opinion — Obama has already forged a broad, bipartisan consensus against his policies on North Korea and Iran. Fifty-seven percent of Democrats thought Obama was not tough enough on Iran, even before the current crisis. Kim Jong Il must be kicking himself for not denying the Holocaust or threatening to wipe Israel off the map more often.
–Karl
In the spirit of intellectual honesty I will applaud this as the right thing to do; and a neat piece of realpolitik if the CHinese are truly going to be involved.
Plus it doesn’t hurt that it will help Obama with the backbone factor…
Gee, if I were cynical, I might think this has something to do with the poll results; the ones that basically see him as wimpish on foreign policy…
Funny how serendipitous the timing is…
Still, the time to get tough with the N Koreans has long passed…
At last! I get to be cautiosly optimistic about an Obama policy…
Does applauding him make me any less of a hater! And does ot by me some anti-raaaaaaaacist! points too..?
Bob (99fc1b) — 6/16/2009 @ 11:11 amEar Leader, getting tough?
hahahahahahahahahaha…. that’s a good one…..
oh.
wait.
were you serious?
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 6/16/2009 @ 11:12 amBut see, when Obama acted like he really wasn’t getting serious about NK earlier, in fact it was just the opposite…and when he mealy – mouthed his tepid whatevers to the Iranian citizens being killed in the streets, what he really meant was…blah, blah, blah. Teh One’s never wrong, he never misspoke, and he never meant what he just said he meant, and you’re all racists for implying otherwise.
Dmac (f7884d) — 6/16/2009 @ 11:17 amI don’t believe Obama plans to get tough with North Korea but he does want to look tough before this visit by the conservative South Korean President. He also wants to demonstrate he appreciates both sides of the Korean situation. Unfortunately, this leaves the Navy with the thankless and dangerous task of implementing a toothless blockade.
Obama’s only plan appears to be opening a dialogue with rogue nations and group, and woe be it to anyone or anything that gets in his way. He clearly believes in his ability to single-handedly solve the most intransigent problems, and nowhere is that more clear than his response following the Iranian election.
For days, the Obama Administration refused to offer support to the protesters or to criticize the Iranian regime. Instead, its focus was that nothing would interfere with Obama’s plans to talk to Iran about its nuclear weapons, regardless of who ends up in control. Because everything with Obama is about Obama.
DRJ (180b67) — 6/16/2009 @ 11:39 amAmen, DRJ.
JD (459763) — 6/16/2009 @ 11:45 amSo what exactly is the point of yelling “Hey you! Stop!”? The ships are just going to continue off to wherever they are going, the crews laughing at the impotence of the USN.
Soronel Haetir (a3f11b) — 6/16/2009 @ 12:04 pmI noticed a subtle change in tone from President Urkle.
papertiger (14ed7d) — 6/16/2009 @ 12:32 pmHe turns the echo box off when addressing tyrants.
I suppose he doesn’t want the ponderous sound of his augmented canyon voice to frighten them.
Maybe it’s professional courtesy.
papertiger (b28aae) — 6/16/2009 @ 1:28 pmSomeone should translate “F**k you, imperialist running dog” into Korean and hand it out to the US ship captains, so that they understand the NK response to The One’s brilliant plan when they hear it over and over again.
M. Scott Eiland (5ccff0) — 6/16/2009 @ 2:40 pmObama isn’t going to get touch on North Korea, Iran or anyone else, unless he can talk them to death.
rochf (ae9c58) — 6/16/2009 @ 4:12 pmThis mook couldn’t “get tough” with a sick kitten.
mojo (de741a) — 6/16/2009 @ 5:22 pmShall I count the ways that Iran is different than North Korea for you?
1. North Korea already has nuclear weapons and the capacity to deliver them to at least Japan.
2. North Korea and South Korea have the most militarized border on the planet with hundreds of thousands of troops within miles of each other.
3. Seoul is an hour from the DMZ. Any attack by the North could kill countless persons within minutes.
4. North Korea is also stocked with chemical weapons ready for delivery.
5. No matter how repressive the Iranian government is, it does not match the craziness found in North Korea.
6. North Korea is far more diplomatically isolated and desperate than Iran.
7. Iran’s politics are far more complex with many more levers to pull than in North Korea. Iran has many different constituencies and the capacity for positive change is at least extant, as demonstrated by the protests today. The only possible change in North Korea – at least right now – will be cataclysmic.
North Korea currently presents a far greater threat to national security – both relating to weapons proliferation and the possibility of mass death – than Iran.
I don’t claim to have the answers as to how to handle these two very different problems, but to suggest that Obama should not have two distinct policies towards these members of the “axis of evil” suggests some pretty simple thinking.
mvatty (99d646) — 6/18/2009 @ 2:06 pm