What Should the Senate Ask Kathleen Stephens?
A reader tells me that the nomination hearing for Kathleen Stephens, State’s pick to be our next Ambassador to Seoul, will take place on April 16th, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
So if you sat on that panel, what would you ask? Naturally, I presume that every single answer to that kind of question will be thoughtful and intelligent, and the most intelligent and thoughtful questions have some unquantifiable chance to be seen by the people who will write the actual questions. On one hand, I’m in no position to make representations; on the other, this may not be an entirely theoretical exercise. You can post the answers in the comments below or e-mail them to me, hopefully with permission to post them anonymously.
Let me open the bidding by asking what Ms. Stephens, as Ambassador, would do to address outrages like this. I’d like to know how high a priority Ms. Stephens would make of dusting off OPLAN 5029 in light of the unfolding untergang in Pyongyang (pst – I know someone who would make a fine military attache). And I’d like to know what role she had in the State Department’s blocking of the North Korean Human Rights Act, most vividly illustrated by the disgraceful behavior of our Consul in Shenyang.
And finally, is this really a country we should remove from the list of state sponsors of terrorism?
The question of role in blocking the Human Rights Act is a big one to ask first.
I’d ask things like:
How much time does North Korea have to implement Agreed Framework 2.0 in full? Are there any cooresponding actions State and the administration have planned for missing deadlines at the different stages?
If we continually slide the timeline back for even simple declarations, why should we believe the North will ever implement in the agreement?
If the new South Korean president leads the South Korean government to get tougher on North Korea on issues of Human Rights and lack of adequate reciprocity — or on issues like lack of adequate monitoring of food and other aid given to the North — will the out-going Bush administration and State move in step with Seoul’s harder line or seek to soften it?
What problems will be created if South Korea’s new leadership makes Human Rights a key issue in bilateral relations with North Korea and the US State Department fails to follow suit?
During this high profile period of the Olympics being in China, will the out-going Bush administration and State take the opportunity to highlight long-standing differences over China’s human rights record – specifically in relation to North Korean refugees? — for example, as the citizens of Tibet have done and members of the European Union in their thoughts of inviting the Dalai Lama for an official visit during this time?
–Will we push for actions like allowing United Nations Human Rights Monitors to travel freely in the North Korea border area where a large number of refugees are in hiding?
What is State going to do in the remainder of the Bush administration to heal the growing divide between Japan and the US over the past couple of years as we abandonned them on key issues important to the Japanese people – specifically the return or accounting of kidnapped Japanese citizens?
Lacking anything profound to say, I imagine I’d ask “appeasersayswhat?”