Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
Stock Market Volatility (VIX) - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Investor Sentiment - 25th Mar 24
The Federal Reserve Didn't Do Anything But It Had Plenty to Say - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Breadth - 24th Mar 24
Stock Market Margin Debt Indicator - 24th Mar 24
It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - 24th Mar 24
Stocks: What to Make of All This Insider Selling- 24th Mar 24
Money Supply Continues To Fall, Economy Worsens – Investors Don’t Care - 24th Mar 24
Get an Edge in the Crypto Market with Order Flow - 24th Mar 24
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Bush backs down to Nuclear North Korea as US Drops Sanctions

Politics / North Korea Feb 09, 2007 - 05:46 AM GMT

By: Mike_Whitney

Politics

There's been plenty of saber rattling and bold talk about forcing North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program, but after a 6 year standoff, Bush has decided to give in to Kim Jung Il's demands. The western media is characterizing the new developments as a “breakthrough”, but, in fact, Bush has retreated on every issue of consequence. It is as close to a total foreign policy failure as one can possibly imagine. Nothing has been achieved. The bottom line is this; Kim refused to budge from his original position, while Bush completely capitulated on his.

“The US has talked tough without achieving anything.” Han Seung-Joo, South Korea's former foreign minister (UK Guardian)

Bush backs down to Nuclear North Korea as US Drops Sanctions


This suggests that there may have to be a serious reworking of Dick Cheney's famous maxim that “We don't negotiate with evil; we defeat it”.

Wrong again, Dick.

The so-called “breakthrough” took place last month in a face-to-face meeting between Washington and Pyongyang in Berlin. The meeting was kept secret to conceal the administration's willingness to meet one-on-one with their North Korean counterparts. Up until then, the chest-thumping Bushies had refused to negotiate in person; choosing instead to hide behind the 6 party talks. Kim's detonation of a nuclear bomb last summertriggered a sudden reversal inthe administration's approach. (Iran has probably noticed Bush's eagerness to negotiate with nuclear-armed states.)
“According to Japan's Asashi newspaper, the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding under which North Korea would make steps towards denuclearization at the same time as the US resumed annual shipments of 500,000 tonnes of oil, which were halted in 2002.” (UK Guardian)

If this all sounds familiar, it is because the deal is identical to the “Agreed Framework” that was worked out by the Clinton administration in 1994 (and which the Bush administration stubbornly refused to honor for 6 years). The only difference now is that North Korea has nuclear weapons.

The new agreement will drop US sanctions against the North and stop “freezing” their foreign banks accounts, a violation of international law. Kim will be expected to cease his nuclear activities at the Yongbyon reactor and allow inspectors from the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog agency, to resume their work.

Kim agreed to all of these conditions10 years ago; his position has never changed. Only Bush has backed-down.

US envoy, Christopher Hill, has tried to put a brave face on Washington's capitulation saying, “I sense a real desire to have progress.”

“Progress”?

Those who have followed the issue won't be so easily fooled. The administration is sending up the white flag and calling it victory. They've back-pedaled on every point of dispute and now they're back to “square one”.

Other parts of Clinton's “Agreed Framework” are still being hammered out, but it isnearly certainthat Bush will be required to meet the terms of the original deal and provide food and 2 lightwater reactors for electrical power. More importantly, Kim is bound to push for “security guarantees” which are now de rigueur for any nation negotiating with the war-mongering US. The North will demand a written assurance (Treaty) that the administration will not preemptively attack them. (The US National Security Statement claims the right to preemptively attack whoever it chooses depending on US national interests)

A signed treaty with North Korea would be agiant leapforward for nuclear nonproliferation as well as world peace.

6 years of failed policy, as well as wars that stretch across Central Asia and the Middle East, have finally pushed the blundering Bush administration to the bargaining table. The lesson is unavoidable: Bush CAN be forced to act rationally when all other options have been thoroughly exhausted. Perhaps, we can glean some small amount of hope from that.

South Korea's former foreign minister, Han Seung-Joo, summarized the latest diplomatic developments saying:

“The US and South Korea will play this up as a big success. But they are going back to where they were before. The US has talked tough without achieving anything. They have reached a new status quo in which North Korea is a nuclear weapons state”.

Like I said, we're back to square one, except now Kim has nukes.

By Mike Whitney

Email: fergiewhitney@msn.com

Mike is a well respected freelance writer living in Washington state, interested in politics and economics from a libertarian perspective.


© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in