House Dems Block Bill Demanding Release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, Re-Listing N. Korea as a Terror-Sponsor

Almost everywhere in Washington, one can sense a seismic shift in the consensus about dealing with North Korea.  Gone are the gauzy fantasies that North Korea’s disarmament is just one more (American) concession away.  You can see this in the Obama Administration’s emerging policy, and you can see it in the think tanks that supply the media much of their analysis.  At an event yesterday, I heard Victor Cha and Jack Pritchard broadly agree on the need for tough sanctions that cause Kim Jong Il real pain, though they predictably didn’t want to press Kim Jong Il to the point of ending his misrule once and for all.  Pritchard and Cha are both close to the South Korean government, of course.  Pritchard works for the Korea Economic Institute, which is funded by the Korean government and registered under the Foreign Agents’ Registration Act.  Cha called for the Pentagon to consider moving back the handover of operational control to the Korean military.  Pritchard even called for toughening secondary sanctions, such as those imposed on Banco Delta Asia.  Six months ago, that would have been hard to imagine.

The last bastion of appeasement is Congress, firmly under Democratic control.  I’ve previously reported how Senate Democrats and John Kerry’s hapless Foreign Relations Committee implicitly (and ironically) put their stamp of approval on the failed appeasement policies of George W. Bush by confirming Christopher Hill, and how they blocked a bill that would have re-added North Korea to the list of state sponsors of terrorism.  Now, it’s the House Democratic leadership that’s covering for Kim Jong Il and shielding him the consequences of his mendacy, terrorism, and global proliferation.

Yesterday, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R, FL), Ranking (Republican) Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, took her North Korea Sanctions and Diplomatic Nonrecognition Bill (H.R. 1980) to the House floor and offered it as an amendment to the Foreign Relations Authorization Act (H.R. 2410).  After hearing Secretary of State Clinton suggest that North Korea could be put back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, Rep. Ros-Lehtinen made a change in the text of her bill accordingly, along the lines of Senator Brownback’s bill in the Senate (the current version is S.837, but expect something more ambitious soon).

The Rules Committee –chaired by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D, NY) met yesterday afternoon to consider amendments before H.R. 2410’s proposed amendments before it went to the Floor today. The Committee ruled Ms. Ros-Lehtinen’s North Korea amendment out of order on a party-line vote. Why?  My source speculates that House Democrats want to give the State Department — with a record of success you can hardly argue with — complete deference to make the decision itself.  Perhaps more significantly, the House Democratic leadership didn’t want to put its members in the position of having to explain to their voters why they voted against this amendment.

Among other provisions, the bill demands the release of Euna Lee and Laura Ling.  Now, Democratic members won’t be forced to take a position on that, but the Democratic leadership has. Its position is to do everything possible to avoid either debate or discussion about issues to which it has no answers to offer.

It would be accurate to say the same of the Senate, and indeed, to expand this into a broad statement that the Democrats in Congress can offer no coherent policy response to North Korea’s provocations (a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing today will be an opportunity to see if one finally emerges).  Indeed, a search of Thomas reveals just one piece of Democratic sponsored legislation on North Korea — a non-binding resolution (H.R. 2290) offered by hawkish Rep. Brad Sherman (D, CA), stating that it is U.S. policy to oppose uranium proliferation, and co-sponsored by Rep. Ros Lehtinen and Rep. Ed Royce (R, CA).

There is reason to be cautiously optimistic about the President’s North Korea policy, but when it comes to dealing with Kim Jong Il, the Democrats in Congress have declared their bankruptcy of ideas and principles.