Back to Gridlock?

Secretary of State Clinton will travel to Asia, including South Korea, next week. In announcing the visit, Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell gave this July 15th on-the-record briefing. In contrast to the Bush Administration’s anytime, anywhere approach to the six-party talks, you can sense a subtle shift in tone:

Let me say that the United States and South Korea have always maintained, and our position is clear, that we are prepared under the right circumstances to sit down in a dialogue with North Korea. But as President Lee Myung-bak has said on numerous occasions, we do not want to talk for talking’s sake; there has to be a clear determination that North Korea rejects its provocative ways and embraces a path towards denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.

I get a growing sense of polarization in the Obama Administration. On the one hand, they seem to have figured out that diplomacy is going nowhere, and accordingly, they’re backing away for the Bush Administration’s desperate pursuit of it. On the other hand, they seem to have found neither the will nor the means to punish, deter, or change to the behavior of the North Korean regime.

All of which sounds very much like the polarization that beset the Bush Administration, almost from the very beginning.