Bent Notes

North Korea says the IAEA can’t inspect its main sites - much less the secret ones - for traces of nuclear material.

Oh, and it’s going to cut off all cross-border movement with South Korea over the south’s “confrontational stance.”

That beacon of clarity, that national treasure John Bolton on the implications of delisting North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism days after NorKor’s missile tests and kicking-out of IAEA inspectors.

North Korea restarts enrichment at Yongbyon.

As I said in a recent post, I can say the same words as the lefties:  W and the 2002-06 GOP Congress have indeed been failures, but not for the reasons the lefties put forth.

A real and huge reason is that they did nothing to stop nuclear proliferation.  Not a damn thing.

Condi, tell Chris Hill to stay home and quit reinforcing the NorKor notion that we’re a bunch of fools.

As the lefties would say, our international standing is at stake.

I suppose IQ-wise, Christopher Hill is a smart enough guy, but he’s currently behaving like an idiot.  Give it up, guy.  This regime will always play us for fools.

Claudia Rosett in Forbes on how six-way-talk diplomacy with North Korea has brought us to the same damn juncture every earlier attempt at acting like we were dealing with reasonable, decent human beings did.  The unique aspect of this time around is that rogue regimes with nuclear ambitions - and there’s one regime in particular that is very close to having nukes - have every reason to feel encouraged by the precedent set.

The much-ballyhooed sit-down between Undersecretary of State Wiliam Burns and chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili was a dud from the get-go.  This whole line of effort is so stupid.  We’ve had three rounds of sanctions, numerous incentives packages and now a high-level meeting.  The upshot:  Iran has told the West, “Go pound sand.  We’re going to keep right on enriching uranium, and we still envision a world without that filthy Zionist regime or the Great Satan America.”

Our State Department is a very sick institution.  It lets North Korea make a mockery of the notion of honoring its deadline obligations  in the Six-Way Talks agreement, it sees a constructive partner for talks on a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians even when that partner, Mahmoud Abbas, sends “blessings” to the family of released child-killer Samir Kantar, and it keeps prattling on about what Iran needs to do to “avoid further isolation” and quit being “unhelpful.”

There is no such thing as a “way forward” in any of these situations.  It’s time - it was time three years ago - to quit talking to any of these enemies and instead demonstrate adherence to some principles, state clearly what will not be accepted and what we understand we may have to do and experience to to stop any crossing of that line.

Secretary Rice says to North Korea regarding the 60-page dossier on its nuke program, “Inadequate.  We want to know about uranium enrichment and technology proliferation.”

The CIA has briefed Congress on the Syrian nuclear reactor that the Israelis zapped last September.  By now, you know that it was built with consultation and materials from North Korea.  It seems that some in the administration are concerned that this jeopardizes the “diplomatic process” in both northeast Asia and the Mideast.

Take a moment to fully let in the irony of a Republican Representative, Pete Hoekstra, holding the position that this situation proves the failure of this whole “diplomatic” track, and a Democrat such as Howard Berman supporting the administration’s quest for a “diplomatic” solution to all this.

And watch the linked interview with John Bolton.

We have most assuredly entered the age of post-non-proliferation, and that has strategic and, indeed, spiritual consequences.  There are consequences attendant to our insistence on seeing the potential for goodwill where none exists.

The great John Bolton on the W administration / State Department failure to do a damn thing about North Korea except make things worse:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120821851545814633.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

A couple of situations examined in previous posts have developed further, and in ways that don’t suprise me at all.

Zimbabwean government forces are surrounding the hotel where the main opposition parties are gathered, and hauling off foreign journalists, such as a New York Times correspondent, from another hotel.

North Korea is cutting off all communication with South Korea, and threatening some kind of “action”: http://www.hemscott.com/news/latest-news/item.do?newsId=62637803048012

Does she honestly expect the outcome she blathers about to come from this?

http://cancelthebee.blogspot.com/2008/03/israel-pledges-it-will-allow.html

And surely Christopher Hill is going to get off his “we’re-more-interested-in-real-signs-of-progress-than-timetables” meme after this.

If he uses the word “unhelpful” in response to it, I think I’ll hurl.

And this time it’s affecting Pyongyang and the society’s priviledged sectors.  A coup in the offing?

 http://freekorea.us/2008/03/20/the-beginning-of-the-end-food-shortages-reach-pyongyang/

Mr. Hill, what the hell is this “we” business?

 A bracing perspective on her reaction to Jay Lefkowitz’s remarks to the American Enterprise Institute about the six-way talks.

North Korea is refusing to dispose of its nuclear fuel, per its agreement in the latest round of the six-way talks.

U.S. scientists have found traces of enriched uranium on some North Korean aluminum tubes.

I think the business about U.S. officials being “concerned that [it] would further complicated diplomacy” speaks volumes about the Kool-Aid-guzzling State Department.

The great John Bolton warned us not to bet the house on the goodwill of the Hermit Kingdom’s Stalinists.

The New York Philharmonic is going to North Korea in February.  Insane is what that is.

Ever wonder just how North Korea was planning to get rid of its stockpile of nuclear material?  Israel feels pretty sure it’s selling it to Iran and Syria.

Claudia Rosset, who does a first-rate job of documenting Christopher Hill’s deterioration into a Foggy Bottm Kool-Aid drinker, parses his recent remarks at the Beijing airport after a meeting of six-way talk people.

I read this, and I think about the big world headlines today - Olmert talking to Abbas about a Palestinian state - they’re not getting into final-phase issues like the status of Jerusalem or the return of refugees, mind you - and the “security subcommittee” talks now underway in Baghdad between the US and Iran - and I wonder if the scope and depth of the current global situation doesn’t prove the point made in recent decades that that the job of US President has become too big for a single person to undertake.

A bunch of talk-show hosts met with W last week in the White House for off-the-record talks, and they all came away telling their listeners that they were still impressed, at this late date, characterized as it is by low poll numbers and even GOP frustration, by W’s firm resolve and how his highest priority every waking minute is still keeping the nation safe from another attack.

The people reporting this are credible - I listen to them all the time - but I have to wonder.  It’s one thing to dial in on a particular morning’s threat matrix report and quite another to not see how fraught any kinds of contacts with the likes of North Korea, Iran and Fatah are with things that can go badly at the drop of a hat.

W’s studied history and been around policy wonks all his life.  Doesn’t he see that?

I’ve come to an interesting assessment of the state of the world in the past few days.  There’s a lot going on, some of it encouraging, a lot of it alarming, some of it silly and sad (see post below), but none of it really surprising.  Everything that’s unfolding is the playing-out of trends that have been in place for some time.

Take this delegation representing the Arab League that visited Israel.  Actually, only two countries - Jordan and Egypt - sent officials.  Headlines are hailing this as some kind of historic event.  But get to about the third paragraph under any of the headlines and you see what they’re offering Israel:  a comprehensive Arab peace (as if they can deliver that) in exchange for Israel giving up all territory outside its original 1948 borders.  Talk about non-news.  This has been the position of every Arab entity that didn’t explicitly have Israel’s obliteration as its agenda since 1973.

Pakistan has the jitters about its prospects for stability since its Supreme Court ruled for the reinstating of its chief justice, a poke in the eye to Musharraf.  Appeals for calm have been issued.  Yet another Pakistani leader does what he can to cling to power in Islamabad while in the remote areas of the Hindu Kush, tribal leaders provide all the accomodations al-Qaeda needs to perfect its designs.  Since the late 90s, a nuclear arsenal has been at stake, which is, shall we say, noteworthy.

This Gordon Brown character in the UK is casting his nation’s lot with the rest of a fatally cluesless Europe, forbidding government officials from identifying bombing plotters as Muslim, and saying that the UK - US partnership is going to take on a different tone now.

One of our two major political parties here in the US - the one with a majority on Capitol Hill - says that the only thing left to debate is just how to get our troops out of Iraq.  This is their stance at the very time when all reports indicate that the surge is working.  This is the same party that took the same stance regarding Vietnam beginning in 1968, when the yippies, after the Grant Park riots, opted to “work within the system” - in other words, begin the McGovernization process which has continued apace ever since.

The North Korean situation - well, see my most recent post on that.  No sooner had it shut down the Yongbyon reactor than Norkor said that the US had to remove it from the State Department list of terror-sponsoring nations, and dole out a bunch of goodies.  The basic NorKor bargaining position for fifty-some years.

So there’s not a lot occurring on the world stage, or in our own halls of government, that would cause one to start a blog post with, “Hey, look at this unexpected development!”  I don’t suppose that will happen until those in a position to influence the twists and turns of history are guided by common sense rather than wishful thinking.