Untrained eyes fail to perceive John Kerry’s North Korea “progress”
~ 1 ~ BRUCE KLINGNER OF THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION asks, “You call this progress, Secretary Kerry?” Kerry cites his meetings with China regarding North Korea, yet Beijing continues to resist U.S....
View ArticleCongress marks 20th anniversary of Agreed Framework I, asks how that’s...
The House Asia-Pacific Subcommittee commemorated the 20th anniversary of Agreed Framework I by calling Ambassadors Glyn Davies and Bob King over for a hearing this afternoon, and it was a tough day for...
View ArticleOnly terrorists make hostage videos, and North Korea just made a hostage video
… of three Americans it is holding for “crimes” that wouldn’t be cognizable as such anywhere else on earth. All three men said they hope the U.S. government will send an envoy to North Korea to help...
View ArticleFormer Obama Admin. official: Our N. Korea sanctions are weak and our policy...
The Obama Administration’s North Korea team is stuck. Its thirst for fresh blood is so dire that it recently asked Keith Richards whether he still has the number of that secret clinic in Switzerland.*...
View ArticleKurt Campbell: We need tougher sanctions on North Korea.
Kurt Campbell, President Obama’s former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs and now CEO of The Asia Group, continues to debunk the pair of academic urban legends that North Korea...
View ArticleChris Hill’s North Korea legacy in three concise paragraphs
Here, via Yonhap, where Hill takes credit for the idea of blowing up the cooling tower at Yongbyon. The North’s destruction of the cooling tower briefly raised hopes for real progress in the six-party...
View ArticleChristian Whiton: “[W]e need a policy of truth for North Korea.”
At CNN.com, Whiton registers the signs of Agreed Framework 3, and writes: There is another way to handle North Korea, which involves putting sustained pressure on the regime. China always says it is...
View ArticleIt just wouldn’t be Groundhog Day without a N. Korea talks story
I was starting to worry that this day would pass and allow that metaphor to go unused: The countries’ nuclear envoys have been discussing the idea of “talks about talks,” according to multiple people...
View ArticlePresident Obama can’t explain what his N. Korea executive order does
The bottom North Korea story of the day is that Pyongyang, which denies having anything to do with the Sony cyberattacks, has just threatened us with cyberattacks. The North’s military will ratchet up...
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Three Pinocchios for Glenn Kessler’s “fact-check” on North Korea
If only for prudential reasons, 47 Republican Senators should not have written to Iran’s Supreme Leader. We only have one President at a time, and only the President should negotiate with foreign...
View ArticleOn Chris Hill in Iraq: “It was frightening how a person could so poison a...
I had long wondered why, after a difficult confirmation battle for the post, Chris Hill’s tenure as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq was so brief. A friend (thank you) points me to this lengthy article in...
View ArticleSeiler: N. Korea isn’t serious about denuclearization
Sydney Seiler, the special envoy for the six-party talks, spoke this week at CSIS, where he affirmed what Ambassador Mark Lippert said last week — that North Korea isn’t ready for serious talks. “They...
View ArticleOn Iran & N Korea: A good deal can’t overcome bad judgment
As the Obama Administration works toward an agreed framework with Iran, a curious division is emerging among its defenders. On one hand, the administration and its supporters are understandably...
View ArticleLesson One: Pyongyang always reneges. Lesson Two: Repeat Lesson One.
If it’s now cliché to write that North Korea might have modeled its domestic policies on Orwell’s 1984, I would like to be the first to coin the cliché that it might have modeled its foreign policy on...
View ArticleOn progressive diplomacy: Friends first, frenemies second, enemies last
Aside from the vanishingly small chance of Agreed Framework III, the foundation of our North Korea policy, as set forth in a series of U.N. Security Council resolutions, is multilateral economic...
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U.S., allies talk sanctions and human rights (emphasis on talk)
We’d hardly had time to digest all those rumors of “exploratory talks” with North Korea just two weeks ago, before John Kerry was in Seoul, sounding like his speechwriters had slipped him some...
View ArticleAgreed Framework III Watch: Syd Seiler steps down
Yonhap is reporting that Syd Seiler, the State Department’s Special Envoy to the long-defunct six-party denuclearization talks, has stepped down and returned to the Office of the Director of National...
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