Rudy G., The Spot Is Yours If You Want It
Now why don’t I ever get offers like this? John McCain, guestblogging at Captain’s Quarters on North Korea:
The President is right to call on the Council to impose a military arms embargo, financial and trade sanctions, and, most importantly, the right to interdict and inspect all cargo in and out of North Korea. I hope the Council quickly adopts these sanctions, and that all members enforce them.
The worst thing we could do is accede to North Korea’s demand for bilateral talks. When has rewarding North Korea’s bad behavior ever gotten us anything more than worse behavior?
I would remind Senator Hillary Clinton and other Democrats critical of Bush Administration policies that the framework agreement her husband’s administration negotiated was a failure. The Koreans received millions in energy assistance. They diverted millions in food assistance to their military. And what did they do? They secretly enriched uranium.
Prior to the agreement, every single time the Clinton Administration warned the Koreans not to do something — not to kick out the IAEA inspectors, not to remove the fuel rods from their reactor — they did it. And they were rewarded every single time by the Clinton Administration with further talks. We had a carrots and no sticks policy that only encouraged bad behavior. When one carrot didn’t work, we offered another.
This isn’t just about North Korea. Iran is watching this test of the Council’s will, and our decisions will surely influence their response to demands that they cease their nuclear program. Now, we must, at long last, stop reinforcing failure with failure.
Well said, Senator, well said…
McCain is the most overrated foreign policy voice on the planet. Because he sometimes parts ways with the Bush administration, people sometimes forget just how wrong he has been about, well, everything over the last 4 years.
I love the effort to pin the North Korea problem on Clinton. Clinton’s approach wasn’t perfect (mainly because the North Koreans are difficult to deal with), but it worked a HELLUVA lot better than the Bush approach, which has been to do absolutely nothing for 6 years. North Korea may have started enriching uranium during the Clinton years, but at least they stopped producing plutonium. They already had Plutunium before Clinton took office, so that was a big deal. The Clinton deal stopped plutonium production. Enriching Uranium is much, much harder and there’s no evidence that NK is anywhere close to being able to do it successfully. But as soon as Bush abandoned bilateral engagement, NK resumed its plutonium program. Now they’re testing plutonium weapons.
There’s simply no getting around the fact that the Bush approach to NK has been an abject failure, and Saint McCain has backed it every step of the way.
Doing nothing is not a strategy. It’s just flat out stupid. And that’s been the strategy both Bush and McCain have supported for the last 6 years. Now he engages is major buck-passing and expects us to praise him for being so tough. What a joke.
Axis of Evil
McCain’s comments on exactly how and when North Korea first obtained their nuclear capabilities.
I have to give kudos to McCain for his smackdown to cHillary’s contention that hubby’s bi-lateral discussions worked.
AL, now you’re playing with semantics. The point was that no one needed or wanted (at least should have) NoKo to become a member of the nuke club. Here you have a runt determined to join at all cost, even if it meant bankrupting his country, starving his countreymenn, counterfeiting US Dollars and who knows what other currencies. And we did what? prolong the inevitable by appeasing and offering aid after aid, most of which was promptly diverted to advancing the pursuit of nukes.
Clinton was gullible, and I might add — unilateralist, for thinking that the US could go it alone and negotiate with a punk, especially when we had no leverage, let alone a defined stake.
Bush may have ‘failed’ with the six-party talks, but the failure only proves that the rational CANNOT negotiate with the irrational. The plus side is that in making a ‘fool’ out of the US, the runt has also effectively thumbed his nose at China, Japan et al. Like it or not, the others now have to answer the challenge. Which is as it should be. I reckon that the hotest of the bunch will be China.
My bet is that Dear Leader will soon be Dear Departed a la Andropov and someone more manageable installed by the Chinese.
So was my guest-blog not good enough for you?
Hey, are you kidding? Of course, you rate higher than Rudy…I just assumed you were unavailable…