Has the administration been right all along on North Korea?

"What Bush Did Right on North Korea" is the title of an opinion piece published in today's NY Times by Richard V. Allen, National Security Advisor to Reagan and a member of the Defense Policy Board. In this article Allen attempts to provide some justification for the Bush administration's policy, or lack thereof, towards North Korea's plans for nuclear weapons capability. Allen argues that in that administration does have a policy, one that critics have so far failed to appreciate because of it's subtlety. In fact, "The Bush administration's customary approach to North Korea, based on consultation with North Korea's neighbors and skepticism of its motives, is exactly what is necessary." He explains this reasoning in the rest of the article. Three passages are worth quoting at length:

"On entering office, the Bush administration announced that it would take a detailed look at policy toward North Korea. President Kim wanted to meet quickly with Mr. Bush and get his endorsement of both the Clinton administration's policy and his own, which closely mirrored each other. Mr. Kim's emissaries pleaded with administration officials for a meeting; the central theme was one of urgency. The foreign minister of South Korea, Lee Joung Binn, made the rounds in Washington just three weeks after President Bush's inauguration, trying to get the meeting on the president's schedule. But the Bush administration wanted more time to assess its policy options and consult with allies."

In other words, the administration's non-action wasn't a result of misplaced priorities or inattention...it was a deliberate policy to delay until they could "assess policy options." To me this sounds oddly similar to the rationale they offered when trying to explain to the 9/11 commission why they didn't act quickly on the threat of terrorism in the month's leading up to the attacks. It's only our misunderstanding that this delay to "consider" options could, from an outside view, appear to be the same as taking no action at all. Regarding developments towards more engagement by the Clinton Administration shortly before Bush's election:

"These developments informed the incoming Bush administration's attitude toward the review that it was conducting before the president met with President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea in March 2001. Since then, the Bush administration has been attacked for having no policy, especially by those who do not like its steady, multilateral approach and its refusal to be intimidated by the recklessness of the North."

"Refusal to be intimidated" is also one way of saying that the administration failed to be in any way responsive to developments in North Korea. After all, when the playground bully knocks you down at school you can claim to not having been "intimidated" by his "recklessness" when you brush yourself off and walk away, scrapes and all. Again, it's difficult from the outside to really tell the difference between a "refual to be intimidated" and a refusal to do anything about the issue at all. As for the "multi-lateral" approach:

"Through patient diplomacy, it has engaged China, Japan, Russia and South Korea in efforts to bring stability to the region. The involvement of China, in particular, is especially encouraging; although a longtime ally of North Korea, China has been generally helpful by facilitating and hosting the six-party talks."

I'm hard-pressed to see what sort of patient diplomacy involves engaging your allies to handle the problem so that you don't have to. I for one think it's strange that we would expend so much diplomatic effort in convincing those with interests in the region to engage North Korea, just so we wouldn't have to. If anything the more likely explanation to me is that, in the absence of any leadership on our part, our allies were forced to attempt to handle the situation themselves.

Mr. Allen also goes to some length to point out the fact that the Clinton policy toward N. Korea was becoming untenable. This is a point that hardly anyone on either side of the N. Korea issue argues with. The Clinton policy was appropriate for 1994; it is not appropriate for now, and that has been clear since late 2000, before Bush even took office. To give him credit, Mr. Allen does state that the Clinton policy was a success at the time. But instead of using this to suggest that the Bush administration needed to adopt quicky a new policy, defenders of the administration attempt to use it to justify a delay in even dealing with the problem beyond "considering" it, even as the problem dragged on into 2002, 2003 and now 2004.

Mr. Allen's article sounds reasonable and well-thought out, but it's extremely difficult to accept his suggestion that Bush's non-policy is in fact a policy itself. If anything he undermines his own point in his article, pointing out how Presiden Kim's emissaries had to "plead" with the administration to get even a meeting with President Bush on the issue, and how such a meeting did not take place until March 2001. It is not unreasonable to say that as an old policy becomes less appropriate, a new policy is needed. It is unreasonable to suggest that the hemming and hawing this administration has done on this issue for three years now resembles anything like that new policy.