So Much for ‘Hawk Engagement:’ Victor Cha Steps Down
The proponent of the “hawk-engagement” theory of North Korea policy looks to be the first casualty of the unraveling of Agreed Framework 2.0. The AP tries to shoehorn this into its standard anti-Iraq War meme, but it’s a strained fit for on Cha, an architect of a soft-line diplomatic approach that is clearly failing:
Cha leaves amid concerns over North Korea’s failure to comply with deadlines to eliminate its nuclear weapons programs. [AP]
Reporter Matthew Lee’s story is what you’d expect of a reporter with a lot of ideological baggage and little knowledge of North Korea policy or Cha’s view of it. Here’s an abstract of the paper that defined Cha’s views:
Victor Cha of Georgetown University explains why President George W. Bush should continue U.S. engagement with North Korea, contrary to the opinion of hard-liners in his administration who contend that engagement is a failed–and potentially dangerous–policy. Cha agrees with skeptics in the Bush administration who argue that the Clinton administration’s engagement of North Korea did not fundamentally alter the regime’s malevolent intentions. Indeed, despite a variety of economic and political incentives from the United States, South Korea, and Japan, North Korea has neither dismantled its weapons of mass destruction program nor discontinued work on developing ballistic missiles. He disagrees with the skeptics, however, that Pyongyang sees engagement as a sign of U.S. weakness. Cha proposes a policy of “containment-plus-engagement” that would use a combination of carrots and sticks to “prevent the crystallization of conditions under which the North Korean regime could calculate aggression as a ‘rational’ course of action even if a [North Korean] victory was impossible.”
The timing of Cha’s departure belies any claim that February 13th’s deal shows much promise. If anyone knows how much trouble this deal is in, it’s Cha. And if Cha saw any reasonable chance of sticking around to claim credit for a diplomatic breakthrough, barring some very compelling family crisis, he wouldn’t be going anywhere. And of course, it’s not negotiation or engagement that are the problem here. The problem is a negotiating style that sees pressure for reform and negotiation as mutally exclusive.
Is it too much to hope that he’ll be followed swiftly by Chris Hill, Nick Burns, and every other proponent of this facially ludicrous initiative? Probably. But when we’ve reached the point where the North Koreans have violated every term of the deal and added a demand that we launder their money for them, it’s time to consider new sanctions against the regime. For cosmetic purposes, we should not walk away from the talks or the process, but we should be realistic about what we can expect from them. North Korea has made its own intentions clear.
Update: Another curious fact is the recency of Cha’s visit to Pyongyang, and his role as direct messenger to the North Koreans. One has to wonder what the North Koreans told him, what he told the President, and what the President said in response. Somehow, Cha sees the current policy as something he doesn’t want to be associated with. And in fact, it’s pretty light on “hawk” and pretty heavy on “engagement.” He’d have some reason to differ with the idea that the flagrant North Korean violations of AF 2.0 should be met with this kind of impotent response.
The chief U.S. negotiator at North Korean nuclear talks said Friday he does not believe Pyongyang is stalling on a pledge to abandon its nuclear weapons, even though three weeks have passed since it missed a crucial deadline.
….
“I know it’s tough to watch the days roll by,” Hill said. “We think our best interest is in being patient.”
President Bush and other top administration officials have warned repeatedly that U.S. patience is not endless. But Hill’s comments suggest a willingness to allow Kim Jong Il’s government time to have its money in hand first, which Pyongyang insists is a condition to stopping its nuclear operations.
Hill told an audience at the Johns Hopkins University school of international studies that North Korea is not using the banking issue to avoid implementation of a nuclear agreement that was considered a breakthrough after a long period of deadlock. [AP, Foster Klug]
Klug also reports on a parting shot from Richard Lawless:
Also Friday, Richard Lawless, U.S. deputy undersecretary of defense for Asian security affairs, said a plan to have South Korea take responsibility by 2012 for commanding its military in wartime would strengthen the U.S.-South Korean alliance.
South Korea, Lawless said at Johns Hopkins, is eminently capable of defending itself, with U.S. support, in the event of an attack. He said the countries were taking their time to make sure everything goes smoothly in the transition.
The recent news from the Pentagon suggests that the ROK’s government’s relations with the Pentagon haven’t improved that much under Robert Gates. The unpleasantries of the last few days may mean that Gates has had some time to absorb just a bit of Rumsfeld’s foul mood toward the South Koreans. Klug, the AP’s main man in Washington covering the Korea issue, follows this story closely enough to be sensitive to Lawless’s unusually direct tone. It’s too bad that Lawless will be long gone by 2012. For his part, Gates might not want to shake the world that much in for the rest of his tenure.