For the past several years, Senator Kerry has
criticized Bush's handling of North Korea.
In 2006, John McCain defended Bush's no-talk policy shortly after
Kerry smacked down John Bolton for the failures of that policy.
A year later in October 2007, WaPo reported on a deal reached with NK:
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 4, 2007; Page A17
Three years ago this month, President Bush met Democratic challenger John F. Kerry in a debate and declared that Kerry's answer on negotiations with North Korea "made me want to scowl."
Bush said that Kerry was advocating a "naive and dangerous" policy of offering to conduct bilateral negotiations with Pyongyang in parallel with the six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear ambitions. "That's what President Clinton did," Bush asserted, saying Kerry's idea would undermine the six-party talks. Clinton "had bilateral talks with the North Korean, and guess what happened: He didn't honor the agreement."
If there was any doubt, yesterday's announcement in Beijing of a new agreement with North Korea demonstrates how much Bush has adopted the approach he once condemned. The agreement was reached after bilateral negotiations between the United States and North Korea, held in parallel with the six-nation talks, just as Kerry had suggested.
Under the deal, North Korea is to begin disabling its core nuclear facilities at Yongbyon and provide a "complete and correct declaration" of all of its nuclear programs by Dec. 31. In exchange, the United States and North Korea will begin cultural exchanges and move toward a "full diplomatic relationship."
Citing the results of bilateral talks held between Pyongyang and Washington last month in Geneva, the six-party agreement strongly suggests that the United States will begin to remove the designation of North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism and end sanctions under the 1917 Trading With the Enemy Act by the end of the year "in parallel with" North Korean actions.
moreWarmonger John Bolton decided that peace would really suck and began
lobbying Repubs in Congress to oppose the agreement with North Korea:
Former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton is urging GOP lawmakers to oppose the Bush administration’s recent agreement with North Korea to end its nuclear programs, according to House Republican sources.
While Bolton’s skepticism of North Korea is well-known, this is believed to be the first time a former top adviser to the president has taken the unusual step of lobbying against a pillar of the administration’s current foreign policy. It is particularly surprising given the value the administration has placed on loyalty.
...in an address last week to a joint meeting of Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans and Republican Policy Committee members, as well as in a separate session with the Conservative Opportunity Society, a group of right-leaning Republicans founded by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). In both meetings, Bolton expressed his concerns about the nuclear agreement reached by the U.S., North Korea and four other countries earlier this month.
Forty-two members attended the joint meeting where Bolton reiterated his longstanding position that trusting North Korea to abide by its promises is the wrong approach, according to a GOP aide who attended. He also spoke about North Korea's role in Syria's nuclear ambitions and encouraged members to review controversial testimony he gave to the Foreign Affairs Committee in September 2003 that figured into his contentious Senate confirmation battle.
Some House Republican lawmakers share Bolton’s view, but members and staff who attended the meetings with Bolton were wary about opposing the Bush administration publicly, and most contacted for this article declined to comment about the meeting’s contents.
In May, McCain, still stuck on Bush, tried to burnish his tough-guy image by calling for the U.S. to take a
harder Line on North Korea.
Kerry responded:
The Wisdom In Talking.
Today the NYT reports:
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 26, 2008
Filed at 9:34 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush said Thursday he will lift key trade sanctions against North Korea and remove it from the U.S. terrorism blacklist, a remarkable turnaround in policy toward the communist regime he once branded as part of an ''axis of evil.''
The announcement came after North Korea handed over a long-awaited accounting of its nuclear work to Chinese officials on Thursday, fulfilling a key step in the denuclearization process.
<...>
''We will trust you only to the extent you fulfill your promises,'' Bush said in the Rose Garden. ''I'm pleased with the progress. I'm under no illusions. This is the first step. This isn't the end of the process. It is the beginning of the process.''
<...>
It also does not provide a complete accounting of how it allegedly helped Syria build what senior U.S. intelligence officials say was a secret nuclear reactor meant to make plutonium, which can be used to make high-yield nuclear weapons. Israeli jets bombed the structure in the remote eastern desert of Syria in September 2007.
Sen. Joseph Biden Jr., D-Del., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said it's critical to understand the nature and extent of North Korea's nuclear cooperation with Syria and any other countries. ''Without clarity on these issues we cannot proceed with confidence to the next phase of the negotiations -- the dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear facilities and the removal of any fissile material from the country,'' he said.
In October 2007, Time asked the relevant question for today:
If North Korea, Why Not Iran?UpdateRichard Perle, one of the
architects of the Iraq War, decides today is as good a day as any to defend Bush's disastrous foreign policy:
For their part, the Iranians, undeterred by Rice's "successful multilateral coalition," are relentlessly building a nuclear weapons program while supporting terrorism and subversion in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Israel. The mullahs took only scornful notice of President Bush's appeals to an even larger coalition, "the world," when he said, on May 18, "To allow the world's leading sponsor of terror to gain the world's deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon." But allow it does.
There are lessons here. Soon after taking office, President Bush rejected several previously negotiated international agreements, including the Kyoto treaty, the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court, a protocol to the biological weapons convention and, in 2002, the treaty banning ballistic missile defenses. The reaction was angry and immediate: The United States, critics charged, had abandoned the multilateralism of the Clinton years for a high-handed "unilateral" approach that alienated our allies and undermined the alliances on which our security was said to depend.
This idea became a centerpiece of John Kerry's presidential campaign. He called for "a bold, progressive internationalism that stands in stark contrast to the too often belligerent and myopic unilateralism of the Bush administration," the conventional wisdom echoed by countless politicians, commentators and opinion polls these past seven and a half years. We are certain to hear more of the same in this year's presidential election.Most often, "multilateral" has referred to policies that were either established in multilateral agreements or blessed by the United Nations, our European allies or both. Left implicit among those preaching multilateralism was the idea that a multilateral solution was always available, if only the administration had been willing to adopt it. It has often been said, wrongly, that the Bush administration opposed working with allies and preferred to go it alone. But a preference for going it alone never was the problem.
moreWASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Kerry released the following statement this morning in response to President Bush’s lift of sanctions against North Korea:
“Progress on ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is always tenuous and remains incomplete. But the regime’s nuclear declaration is the latest reminder that, despite President Bush’s once bellicose rhetoric, engaging our enemies can pay dividends. Historians will long wonder why this Administration did not directly engage North Korea before Pyongyang gathered enough material for several nuclear weapons, tested a nuclear device, and the missiles to deliver them. Now the President must not prematurely close the books on North Korea’s alleged uranium enrichment activities and nuclear exports. We must ensure there are credible verification and monitoring procedures to ensure North Korea is out of the nuclear business for the long term.”
edited typos.
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