There is something of a debate going on as to whether the North Korean deal represents a triumph of the realist professional wing of the U.S. foreign policy establishment and the world can breathe easier now that President Bush is finally under adult supervision.
Corrosive cynicism here. As much as I like the idea of diplomacy, compromise, win-win, and all that, I have trouble characterizing Chris Hill’s deal as "brilliant". I think George Bush went into the tank on this one.
The deal, concluded with suspicious haste and doing precious little to advance U.S. interests in Northeast Asia, seems to derive its impetus from the Bush administration's longstanding geopolitical obsession: Iran.
With the post-election American public, Congress, the GOP establishment, significant elements of the military and diplomatic/security professionals, and, I suspect, Laura and Barney extremely dubious about the advisability of attacking Iran, I suspect President Bush gave a green light to Christopher Hill on North Korea as a piece of emergency image management.
Also, as an admittedly outside view of State Department dynamics, I think President Bush wanted Condi Rice to feel beholden to him for tossing her the North Korea bone, so she can stop nagging him about how he should be doing the grown-up diplomacy thing and singlemindedly push his Iran strategy instead.
Now President Bush can tell the world and the inside-the-Beltway crowd that he’s not just a war-hungry nut—he’s the Negotiarator!
So he gains some credibility and some slack, especially from his beleaguered foreign policy team, which he will promptly abuse by setting the bar for success of any Iran talks impossibly high. But there will be a massive effort to blame the Iranians because, you know, we love to make deals. Look what we did with North Korea!
Condi Rice sez: This president loves peace! But those Iranians are too wicked. Bombs away!
Then Bush gets what he really wants: hot containment of Iran.
Either the international community lines up behind the U.S. and gives us the diplomatic cover of sanctions, or we have something better than sanctions: a state of war between Iran and the U.S., with the terms of engagement—no-fly zones, acceptable dual-use targets, attacks on "proliferation-related" physical and financial infrastructure—defined so we can just go and blow their sh*t up—not just nuclear facilities, but oil terminals and refineries and pipelines—whenever we feel like it.
Maybe we won’t get an arrangement as good as we had against Saddam’s Iraq, where he couldn’t export oil or import equipment without our approval. But in one way a state of hostilities is even better, because then Iran has to negotiate directly with the U.S. instead of running to the U.N.
Nutshell prediction: Non-stop push to make an attack on Iran palatable to the international community and domestic audience; North Korean deal does not outlive its political usefulness and dies in the working groups. 2008: angry and armed Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China.
In other words, just like 2006, only moreso.
I've posted in depth on the North Korean security crisis at China Matters. A recent post critiquing the agreement and its timing, and discussing how it might fit in with the forthcoming diplomatic campaign to sanction Iran in March is here.