Wobble Watch
Here I go again, elevating my metabolism about the latest U.S.-North Korean “breakthrough” that will probably amount to nothing.
North Korea has reportedly agreed to halt nuclear activities including operations at a reactor in Yongbyon, and allow on-site monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency as the first steps to abandoning its nuclear program. The agreement came during a meeting of the chief nuclear negotiators of the U.S. and North Korea that ended Friday in Berlin, sources said.
According to diplomatic sources in Seoul and Beijing, North Korea’s top nuclear envoy Kim Kye-gwan told his U.S. counterpart Christopher Hill that North Korea will yield in return for economic and energy aid from the U.S. and assurances that the U.S. will seek to unfreeze North Korea’s US$24 million in accounts with the Macau-based Banco Delta Asia.
The U.S. will discuss conditions for the lifting of financial sanctions in separate bilateral talks scheduled this month. The North is expected to implement its part of the deal once it is finalized in the next round of the six-nation nuclear talks, which are likely to resume early next month. Pyongyang and Washington agreed to use the term “monitoring” rather than “inspection. [link]
What this would mean is that Kim Jong Il would get his frozen criminal proceeds in exchange for the most revocable of concessions: a freeze. So much for CVID, then. This deal, if accurately reported, would mean we’d have outsourced* our monitoring and inspection to the same UN that’s made itself a pop culture mockery and the object of a fresh scandal. Kim Jong Il will not be so foolish as to let us get our hands on so much of his cash — generated by printing our cash — again, so we will in effect surrender our main leverage for something that will prove illusory before the next president takes the oath of office. Odds are, the next president will not want this headache and will be unduly hesistant to upset this deal with questions about cheating, verification, or human rights. It’s a setup for the same approach the Clinton Administration took: pretending that we’ve solved the problem. Unfortunately, that’s also a strong temptation for the Bush Administration when it’s expending its mojo on Iraq and concerned about its “legacy.”
Here’s another prediction: plenty of administration critics will briefly become an “aha!” chorus now that the Administration has abandoned all pretense that it won’t talk to North Korea bilaterally. Expect the North Koreans to take full advantage of that. It could mean the worst of both models — not only does North Korea get to present its extortion demands directly to us, but we also have to give China, South Korea, and Russia just enough “consultation” for them to help the North Koreans screw us.
* This is a treasured Democratic spin-word for our Iran diplomacy and the Six-Party talks, which they will never apply to such matters as giving the UN veto authority over PSI enforcement. I like it for all of the above.