Miserable failure
Well, North Korea has nukes. The miserable failure‘s bluff was called and we’re about to see a general rearmament of Asia (particularly Japan), almost entirely due to the failure of the Bush administration. As JMM puts it
All diplomatic niceties aside, President Bush’s idea was that the North Koreans would respond better to threats than Clinton’s mix of carrots and sticks.
Then in the winter of 2002-3, as the US was preparing to invade Iraq, the North called Bush’s bluff. And the president folded. Abjectly, utterly, even hilariously if the consequences weren’t so grave and vast.
Threats are a potent force if you’re willing to follow through on them. But he wasn’t. The plutonium production plant, which had been shuttered since 1994, got unshuttered. And the bomb that exploded tonight was, if I understand this correctly, almost certainly the product of that plutonium uncorked almost four years ago.
So the President talked a good game, the North Koreans called his bluff and he folded. And since then, for all intents and purposes, and all the atmospherics to the contrary, he and his administration have done essentially nothing.
…
Talking tough is great if you can make it stick and back it up; it is always and necessarily cleaner and less compromising than sitting down and dealing with bad actors. Talking tough and then folding your cards doesn’t just show weakness it invites contempt. And that is what we have here.
What’s Bush’s legacy? Arrogance and incompetence. Authoritarianism and the destruction of the American Empire (and, possibly, “America”). Failure, cowardice, and lies. Death, destruction, and corruption. That is going to be his legacy.
And by cowardice, I’m not just talking about his going AWOL in a time of war. No, I’m talking specifically about North Korea here.
The US Government has announced that it will release $95m to North Korea as part of an agreement to replace the Stalinist country’s own nuclear programme, which the US suspected was being misused.
Under the 1994 Agreed Framework an international consortium is building two proliferation-proof nuclear reactors and providing fuel oil for North Korea while the reactors are being built.In releasing the funding, President George W Bush waived the Framework’s requirement that North Korea allow inspectors to ensure it has not hidden away any weapons-grade plutonium from the original reactors.
President Bush argued that the decision was “vital to the national security interests of the United States”.
Of course, I fully expect Bush’s failure in North Korea to be used as his reasoning for why we should attack Iran. Start the Time Until Bush Uses North Korea as Justification countdown!
