Smart Diplomacy! Obama Commemorates Korean War Anniversary by Keeping N. Korea Off the Terror List

I believe American citizens owe the presidents they collectively elect a clean-slate judgment that begins at the moment when they assume office. Never mind what they said during the campaign; it’s the actions of a president in office by which we judge him. And on North Korea policy — without comment on his other policies — I’ve tried to be objective in judging President Obama; perhaps because of my low expectations, I’ve found much to praise in his actions since North Korea’s May 2009 nuclear test. The honeymoon may have to end here. If this report proves to be accurate, President Obama has just lost me (hat tip: Curtis).

I’ve previously recounted the many reasons why North Korea should be on the list, so I’ll just summarize here and send you to other posts for the specifics: (1) North Korea, which then had a long history of carrying out or sponsoring terrorist attacks, was taken off the list in the first place for completely political reasons, while it held perhaps thousands of Japanese and South Korean abductees, because of disarmament promises it predictably broke; (2) North Korea was de-listed despite failing to account for a U.S. resident it kidnapped and murdered, despite then-Senator Obama’s promise to oppose de-listing until North Korea accounted for him; (3) since it was de-listed, North Korea has significantly increased the use of its state media as an instrument of terrorism, to include a threat to civilian air traffic and multiple threats of nuclear strikes; (4) since it was de-listed, North Korea has been caught, repeatedly, shipping arms to Iranian-backed terrorists, arms that included man-portable surface-to-air missiles; and (5) two North Korean majors have pled guilty to attempting to murder a dissident in South Korea on orders from their government.

(And lest we forget, North Korea is now threatening to inflict more punishment on poor Aijalon Gomes, the Massachusetts native who is unjustly imprisoned in North Korea because he made the foolish — yet hardly criminal — mistake of walking up to North Korean border guards and handing them a petition calling for the end of its human rights atrocities. If only Gomes’s senior Senator had half the diplomatic talent he images himself to have….)

If this isn’t the state sponsorship of terrorism, I really don’t know what is, although I suspect it’s the State Department’s General Counsel that hasn’t found the statutory definition for “international terrorism.” This isn’t just bad policy, it’s also incompetent lawyering. If the Obama Administration doesn’t have the analytical or testicular wherewithall to call these acts what they are, I question the seriousness of its policies with respect to North Korea or terrorism.

Worse, this is terrible diplomacy. De-listing North Korea may have been the obsessive pursuit of Chris Hill, Sung Kim, and the other nerds at the East Asia Bureau, but it badly damaged relations with Japan. Now, after we’ve just awakened from the bad dream of Hatoyama and Futenma, we’re going to kick the Japanese in the teeth. The issue of Japanese who are believed to be held (or buried) in North Korea is a matter of extreme emotional sensitivity to the Japanese people, one that transcends partisan affiliation. And if that’s not bad enough, Mrs. Clinton is letting word of this decision leak out as President Lee feels his impotence at the United Nations, is limited in his response to the attack because of North Korean threats, and needs a strong signal of U.S. backing after the sinking of the Cheonan. To send this signal, of all times, as the two nations mark the 60th anniversary of the Korean War, only serves to symbolize that in a moment of crisis, this administration doesn’t have South Korea’s back in one symbolically and financially important way that costs the United States nothing.

Just imagine the reaction if the Bush Administration had been so arrogant and inconsiderate toward longstanding U.S. allies. Now tell me what possible countervailing interest we will advance by keeping North Korea off this list, aside from helping Kim Jong Il evade the legal, financial, and diplomatic consequences of his sponsorship of terrorism. What a terribly dangerous time to send a signal of such profound weakness.