Watch Your Back, Comrade
No, this is not a post about Hillary Clinton’s role in Barack Obama’s cabinet.
I’ve read a lot of silly reporting about Kim Jong Il’s rumored stroke, but I’ve also seen and heard enough leaks from people who ought to be in the know that I’m actually starting to believe that he’s seriously debilitated. This latest one comes from former CIA officer Art Brown, and it makes it sound as though the power struggle to inherit all this is already underway:
Specifically, he mentioned Gen. Ri Myong Su, a senior military planning officer, Gen. Hyon Chol Hae, a senior military political officer, and Kim Yang Gon of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea.
Other names touched on are Kim Ok, a former secretary of Kim said to be his de facto fourth wife, and Jang Song Thaek, Kim’s younger brother-in-law who is first vice director of the Workers’ Party of Korea. [Kyodo News]
I’ve heard some very sophisticated North Korea watchers say that the Workers’ Party leadership is the key to the succession struggle, but I’m still betting on the guys with the guns. Watch for the Party to try to use the State Security Bureau to pluck away some of the most powerful military warlords in the dark of night, and whether the military just takes that lying down. You can see the potential for this sort of thing to destabilize the regime.
What it will not mean, for now, is any new diplomatic outreach to Earth or significant performance on denuclearization. For now, it’s probably very dangerous to appear to be less hard-line than your potential rival, not to mention the complexity of knowing who has the authority to negotiate what.
Even Brown, however, is saying he can’t confirm the rumors about the health of His Porcine Majesty. I still harbor my own doubts. While a Kim Jong Il health rumor is the last thing you’d expect the regime to plant intentionally, all of this does come at a time of perfect convenience for North Korea to declare the final step in its non-performance on the February 2007 nuclear disarmament. With Korea watchers of various persuasions already criticizing Chris Hill’s failure to reach a clear understanding on most of our specific differences with North Korea, Kim — or his successors — may be hard pressed to get a better deal from Obama than they got from Bush. If Kim Jong Il were to want to come back to the Obama Administration for more aid and a new deal next year, however, this story provides his apologists a certain degree of cover to explain away his non-performance this year.
Related: Ambassador Stephens warns North Korea not to try to divide the U.S. from South Korea. Given how well that’s worked for the last decade, I don’t know why the North Koreans should listen to her.