Will Rumsfeld resign after Nov. 7?

That's what Sally Quinn thinks.

I suspect that he has already told the president and Cheney that he will leave after the midterm elections, saying that the country needs new leadership to wind down the war.

And he will resign to take a job in some sort of humanitarian venture, thereby creating the perception that he is a caring person who left of his own accord to devote the rest of his life to good works.

While I fervently hope that she's right, I don't buy it. If all the previous pressure didn't induce Bush to can him, what could spark such a move now?

If he's simply sick and tired of the flak, fine. But as a political calculation, I don't think the logic is there.

Rumsfeld, politics, midtopia

Who watches the watchers?

Our elected officials. Which, during election season, is at least enough to make you go "hmmm":

The House Appropriations Committee has let go about 60 private contractors who made up most of an investigative unit that was auditing billions of dollars in government spending, including the $62 billion federal relief package for Hurricane Katrina, the panel's spokesman said Thursday.

The investigators, attached to the committee's Surveys and Investigations division, were released during the past week, committee spokesman John Scofield said. He said that the quality of the unit's work had been questioned by leaders of the Republican-controlled committee, including some Democrats, but he declined to say who.

The shake-up — which leaves only 16 full-time employees in the investigative unit — comes about a year after the Appropriations Committee's chairman, Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., launched the Katrina review by saying the unit would "conduct a wide-ranging assessment and analysis of disaster spending." At the time, Lewis said the unit had a tradition of "comprehensive" reporting.

Firing 60 of 76 full-time auditors? What's going on?

Well, there's this to consider: According to Think Progress (and I take that sourcing with a grain of salt), it might have something to do with the fact that Lewis himself is under federal investigation for corruption charges related to jailed former Rep. Randy Cunningham. Although that doesn't make a ton of sense; calling off the Appropriations auditors wouldn't affect the corruption investigation.

Meanwhile, Citizens against Government Waste isn't happy.

It certainly raises a lot of questions.

Jerry Lewis, politics, midtopia

Boy Scouts and discrimination

Be careful what you ask for, because you might not like what you get.

Six years ago, the Supreme Court ruled -- correctly -- that a private organization like the Boy Scouts could not be forced to accept gays as either Scouts or leaders.

Since then, however, the Boy Scouts have learned a lesson about the other side of freedom of association: the rest of society can choose whether it wishes to associate with you.

Parents have pulled their children out of Scouting. Cities, schools and governmental organizations have stopped sponsoring Boy Scout troops, or stopped providing them with subsidized services or facilities, or stopped listing them on employee charity forms.

The Boy Scouts have sued, claiming victim status. But as long as governmental services are provided (or not) based on objective criteria, the Boy Scouts have no leg to stand on. Cities aren't required to give the KKK free access to city facilities, and they are similarly not required to provide such access to the Scouts.

This is a shame. I was an Eagle Scout and an Order of the Arrow member. I was senior patrol leader for my troop. I spent 10 years in Scouting, and the experience was phenomenal. The Scouts, at their best, provide young boys with camaraderie, self-confidence, skills and experiences that can be hard for city dwellers to come by another way.

But the anti-gay facet of Scouting was never a factor in my experience. Had it been, the whole experience would have been different, and lessened. We recited the Scout Oath, but "morally straight" never meant "heterosexual"; it meant "upstanding and honest."

Similarly, religion wasn't central to Scouting back in my day. It was about camping, and knot-tying, and hiking, and being of good character.

Religion intruded on us only once while I was a Scout. Our longtime Scoutmaster bowed out, and the new Scoutmaster began holding mandatory "nondenominational" church services on campouts. They were nondenominational only if you were Protestant Christian, and many of us weren't; besides Catholics, we had Jews, Muslims and assorted nonbelievers in the troop.

I led the Senior Patrol in a boycott of the services, and told the Scoutmaster that most of the senior Scouts would quit if he didn't stop. That led to a meeting of troop parents in which the Scoutmaster was indeed told to knock it off.

Later, when I was finishing up work for my Eagle badge, I had to choose one part of the Scout Law to write an essay on. I chose "Reverent", and argued that it didn't mean "religious"; it meant having respect for religion and the beliefs of others.

I also asked my Scoutmaster to write one of the three required recommendations. To his credit, he did so.

I fondly remember my time in Scouting. But what Scouting has to offer is not tied to religious beliefs; it's tied to the values and citizenship it promotes. Some may argue that those values are rooted in religion. I disagree, but it's irrelevant. Whatever they're rooted in, they do not need religion in order to propogate. And the current Scout leadership, by emphasizing the religion over the common values, do a great disservice to both and to the value Scouting has provided to American society for decades.

So based on the values taught to me by Scouting, I conclude that they deserve everything they get. I only hope that they abandon their current folly before they do too much harm to future generations, for whom Scouting may not have the meaning or the value that it had for previous generations.

gays, Boy Scouts, Supreme Court, politics, midtopia

More GOP shame

The sleaze is coming fast and furious with the election just three weeks away. This time it's a Republican, Curt Weldon.

FBI agents raided the home of a daughter of U.S. Representative Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican, as part of an investigation into whether he used political influence to steer business toward her consulting firm, a person familiar with the case said.

Federal Bureau of Investigation agents raided Karen Weldon's home today in Philadelphia as well as the home of her business associate Charles Sexton, the person said.

On Oct. 13, McClatchy Newspapers reported that the FBI asked the Justice Department to investigate Weldon's efforts from 2002 to 2004 on behalf of two Russian companies and two Serbian brothers. Karen Weldon's firm received lobbying and consulting contracts to represent the firms, including a $500,000 contract to represent a Russian energy company, McClatchy reported.

This would be a daughter with no previous lobbying experience and no particular connections other than her father. And as icing on the cake, the companies she was representing had ties to former Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic.

Weldon joins Reid and Jefferson in the Hall of Shame's on-deck circle.

Weldon, politics, midtopia

Daddy daycare

Posting may be a little light this week. My oldest daughter is out of school all week, and I'm home making paper crowns, reading picture books and otherwise reliving my childhood.

As always, enjoy the excellent coverage at Donklephant, Blogcritics, the Moderate Voice, Centrisity and the other fine sites in my blogroll.

politics, midtopia

WaPo takes Reid to task

The Washington Post has weighed in with an editorial on Harry Reid's land dealings, and it's harsh.

Mr. Reid's professions of transparency and full disclosure are transparently wrong. His investment was not reported in a manner that made clear his partnership with Mr. Brown. It's true -- under the inadequate financial disclosure rules -- that even if Mr. Reid had listed the newly formed corporation, Patrick Lane LLC, that wouldn't have by itself demonstrated Mr. Brown's involvement. Nonetheless, that Mr. Reid no longer owned the land, but instead had sold it for an interest in the Patrick Lane corporation, was not some mere "technical change," as the senator would like to brush it off. It's an essential element of financial disclosure rules, the purpose of which is to know how and with whom public officials are financially entwined.

I wait with interest for Reid's discussions with the ethics board.

Reid, politics, midtopia

Air America files for bankruptcy

Financial, not moral.

Think Progress reported it a month ago, but nothing came of it. But they clearly were on to something. Air America said it only recently decided to file after negotiations with a key financial backer fell through, but it's been obvious they were having money troubles for a long time.

They're going to stay on the air during reorganization.

I like fellow Minnesotan Al Franken, so I listened to a couple of his shows when they first went on the air. But although I'm a political junkie, I found I had no appetite or time for partisan radio, liberal or conservative.

So my question in all this is: Does anyone here actually care? Will this have an effect on the political landscape? And does it say anything substantive about liberal talk radio, or talk radio in general?

talk radio, Air America, politics, midtopia

Was it a nuke? Nobody yet knows

The evidence remains inconclusive.

But determining just what caused the seismic spike is such a delicate art that after five days of intense work, analysts still cannot say for sure whether the test was a success or a dud—and there is a remote possibility the blast was not nuclear.

Early stories said we would know in a few days. Now they're talking weeks.

Other reports quote intelligence officials as saying they think it was a failed test of a plutonium bomb, and that they yield was even smaller than previously thought: 0.2 kilotons. In addition, no plutonium has been detected in air samples collected since the blast.

Whatever it was, it seems clear it wasn't good news for North Korea. Either they don't have a bomb, or they have one that didn't work.

nuclear, North Korea, politics, midtopia

McCain's 1994 speech

Here's the 1994 speech in which John McCain criticized the Clinton administration for its North Korea policy. This is the basis of McCain's claim that he argued all along that Clinton's policy was a failure.

Read the whole thing. And then compare it to this timeline of Korea-related events.

I'm struck by how alarmist and wrong McCain was about much of what he said. The only thing he got right was that North Korea should not be trusted -- but that ignores the fact that the Agreed Framework did not require trust. Instead, it required IAEA inspections and verifiable actions.

He predicted the talks would fail; they didn't. He predicted North Korean artillery would hold Seoul hostage while they withdrew from the NPT; they did neither. He predicted the North Koreans would reprocess the plutonium; they didn't -- at least not for eight years, until after we had officially killed the Framework following the exposure of their uranium program.

His push for "counterbattery fire" was remarkably toothless. Counterbattery fire simply means using artillery to shoot at other artillery in an attempt to suppress or destroy it. But the North Koreans have 11,000 artillery tubes, most of that on the border, most of it dug in and hardened over the last 50 years. No amount of counterbattery fire would seriously diminish that in time to save Seoul.

He posits an early test of administration resolve: whether IAEA inspectors would be allowed to visit two nuclear waste sites for the Yongbyon reactor. What happened? Check the timeline.

A week before his speech, North Korea had said inspectors could remain at the reactor. The same day he spoke (June 23), they said they would fully comply with the NPT and the IAEA, On July 12 they said the IAEA inspectors could stay at Yongbyon, the fuel rods would not be processed and the reactor would not be restarted. By Sept. 13 the IAEA was able to issue a report of its inspections, saying no plutonium had been extracted there since 1993.

By November 1994 the IAEA was able to certify that North Korea had frozen all operations at Yongbyon.

The timeline might have been a bit longer than McCain implied it should be, but the end result was the same: North Korea, contrary to McCain's prediction, fully submitted to IAEA inspections at all of its known nuclear sites.

Other than showing him questioning Clinton's approach, I don't know why he thinks this speech helps him make his point. It shows him to be wrong on every specific count, and his main alternate proposal -- counterbattery fire to prevent NK from holding Seoul hostage -- ineffective.

nuclear, North Korea, Clinton, McCain, politics, midtopia

Former Foley aide testifies before Congress

The session was behind closed doors, and the aide, Kirk Fordham, was ordered not to talk about it. But his lawyer says his sworn testimony was a repeat of his public comments.

The House ethics panel also questioned Rep. Shelley Capito, who sits on the board that oversee the page program. Rep. John Shimkus, the head of that board, will testify today.

So far the Republican defense seems to be holding: leaders admit they knew about -- and took action over -- the relatively tame e-mails, but not the lurid IMs. But with less than four weeks to the elections, it remains to be seen whether more will come out, or whether voters will accept that explanation as sufficient.

Fordham, Capito, Shimkus, Foley, politics, midtopia

It's back!!

My favorite polling roundup site, Electoral-Vote.com, is back up for the 2006 elections.

I like them because they aggregate all sorts of different polls in an easy-to-use format, and provide the underlying data so you can drill down as far as you want.

I've added them to my list of Resources in the sidebar, and put a daily projection graphic there as well.

politics, midtopia

Clinton, Bush and NK

I intend for this to be the only post I do on the finger-pointing aspect of the North Korean nuke test. Not that it isn't a fair topic, it's just that deciding what to do now is more important.

Who is to blame for North Korea building nukes? Well, North Korea mostly. And China for sheltering them, even though China itself isn't at all happy about the nuke test.

But as far as U.S. policy, who did what? Who could have done more?

Fred Kaplan at Slate weighs in with a detailed rebuttal of John McCain's effort to lay the blame at Bill Clinton's feet, so we'll start there. It's opinion, but it's fact-based:

In the spring of 1994, barely a year into Bill Clinton's presidency, the North Koreans announced that they were about to remove the fuel rods from their nuclear reactor (as a first step to reprocessing them into plutonium), cancel their commitment to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (which they had signed in 1985), and expel the international weapons inspectors (who had been guarding the rods under the treaty's authority).

Did Clinton "reward" them for doing these things, as McCain claims? Far from it. Not only did he push the U.N. Security Council to consider sanctions, he also ordered the Joint Chiefs of Staff to draw up plans to send 50,000 additional troops to South Korea—bolstering the 37,000 already there—along with more than 400 combat jets, 50 ships, and several battalions of Apache helicopters, Bradley fighting vehicles, multiple-launch rockets, and Patriot air-defense missiles. He also sent in an advance team of 250 soldiers to set up logistical headquarters for the influx of troops and gear.

He sent an explicit signal that removing the fuel rods would cross a "red line." Several of his former aides insist that if North Korea had crossed that line, he would have launched an airstrike on the Yongbyon reactor, even knowing that it might lead to war.

At the same time, Clinton set up a diplomatic backchannel, sending former President Jimmy Carter to Pyongyang for direct talks with Kim Il-Sung, then North Korea's dictator and the father of its present "dear leader," Kim Jong-il. (The official Washington line held that Carter made the trip on his own, but a recent memoir by three former U.S. officials, Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis, acknowledges that Clinton asked him to go.)

This combination of sticks and carrots led Kim Il-Sung to call off his threats—the fuel rods weren't removed, the inspectors weren't kicked out—and, a few months later, to the signing of the Agreed Framework.

Ah, the Agreed Framework. More on that later. For now, Kaplan notes that in a 1995 annex to the Framework, North Korea agreed to export its spent fuel from the new light-water reactors rather than processing them itself -- exactly the approach suggested for Iran.

Kaplan sums up:

At the end of 2002, when the North Koreans really did unlock the rods and kick out the inspectors—when they crossed what Clinton had called the "red line"—Bush didn't take military action, he didn't call for sanctions, nor did he try diplomacy. It's Bush, not Clinton, who did nothing.

Now, he's comparing what Clinton aides say Clinton would have done to what Bush actually did in the event. So the comparison is a bit squishy. But there it is.

Critics say Clinton "appeased" North Korea, and the Framework was a failure. But what actually happened?

First, read the Framework. It's short.

The Framework laid out the following major points:

1. North Korea would remain part of the Nonproliferation treaty, halt construction on two proliferation-friendly nuclear reactors, and place its nuclear materials in the care of IAEA inspectors. It would also allow continued inspections of its nuclear facilities.

2. The U.S. agreed to replace those two reactors with two modern light-water reactors, which besides being safer also produced far less divertable plutonium. While those reactors were being built, they would provide North Korea with fuel oil for electrical generation. We also agreed to move toward normalization of relations.

North Korea's known nuclear program was based around plutonium, and it is that program that the Framework deals with.

Note that the agreement was built around major, verifiable acts by North Korea. We weren't just giving him stuff with no strings attached and hoping for the best. We were rewarding specific behavior with specific payoffs.

And for eight years, with one huge exception, North Korea scrupulously adhered to the Framework, even while a Republican-led Congress forced us to renege on various aspects of it -- notably, timely delivery of the fuel oil and the lifting of Korean War-era sanctions. For eight years their plutonium program was frozen. That seems like a significant achievement to me.

But what about the nuclear reactors we were building? Due to various delays, construction on the first reactor didn't even begin until 2002, and was halted a year later. The construction sites remain mere holes in the ground.

So what was the big exception I mentioned? While adhering to restrictions on its plutonium program, North Korea -- being unscrupulous nutjobs -- secretly started a uranium-enrichment program. It's not clear when that program began, and uranium enrichment is much harder to do than plutonium. In many ways they were starting over from the beginning, with a much higher mountain to climb in order to achieve nuclear status.

So the Agreed Framework was a failure only if you include a secret program that wasn't covered by the Framework except in spirit. That's a bit like saying a filter that catches 90 percent of particulates is a failure because it misses 10 percent. The Framework achieved exactly what it set out to do: it halted North Korea's nuclear program in its tracks. For eight years North Korea didn't make measurable progress, all for the price of some fuel oil.

After Bush was elected, he continued with the Agreed Framework, even while expressing reservations about it. In March 2002 he waived a certification requirement in the Framework in order to continue providing aid to North Korea. As mentioned above, he also allowed construction of the light-water reactors to begin in August 2002. These are not the actions we would expect if the Framework were clearly irresponsible on its face.

Then, in October 2002, we uncovered evidence of the uranium program. We immediately suspended the Framework, and justifiably so -- although fuel oil shipments continued until December, and work on the reactors continued for another year. But we didn't replace it with anything; we just demanded action from North Korea. Maybe that made us feel good, but as a practical approach it left a lot to be desired. North Korea, hiding under China's protective wing, was never going to respond to all but the most credible and extreme threats. And with the looming invasion of Iraq, our threats were no longer remotely credible.

We finally got around to proposing multilateral talks, while North Korea withdrew from the Nonproliferation Treaty, kicked out the IAEA inspectors and resumed reprocessing fuel rods. We let the talks drag on with no serious results. Then we sat on our hands after North Korea withdrew a year ago, while they tested missiles and built a nuke.

So Clinton had success in reining in North Korea, while Bush didn't. That alone isn't conclusive; lack of success regarding North Korea isn't necessarily a sign of inaction, giving that the North Koreans are lunatics. But with Bush insisting on talks while doing essentially nothing to cajole North Korea to participate, it's hard to see how he expected anything to happen.

But inaction, too, is not necessarily damning. Sometimes waiting a stubborn adversary out is the best course, especially when the alternative is to reward bad behavior. One could make a principled case that refusing to engage a bad actor is the right thing to do.

But there are two things that are simply absurd:

1. It is absurd to blame Clinton for many North Korean actions that occurred on Bush's watch, notably withdrawing from the Nonproliferation Treaty and resuming fuel reprocessing. It is especially absurd to blame Clinton for North Korea testing missiles and a nuke six years into Bush's term.

2. It is absurd to claim Bush has actively achieved anything regarding North Korea's nuclear program. He has had some success shutting down North Korean criminal enterprises, such as their smuggling and counterfeiting operations. But as far as their nuke program, he has gotten nowhere.

One can speculate as to whether he could have done better. Perhaps not; North Korea is a complex case. But it seems clear that Bush's simplistic, all-stick-and-no-carrot approach was doomed to fail. If his goal was to keep North Korea from going nuclear, his chosen approach was the wrong one.

Update: Added details on the transition from Clinton to Bush, and smoothed out the writing a little bit.

Update II: Here's a look at McCain's 1994 speech criticizing Clinton's policy on North Korea.

Clinton, Bush, nuclear, North Korea, politics, midtopia

Reid gets $1.1 million windfall

We may have a prospective new Democratic candidate for the Hall of Shame.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid collected a $1.1 million windfall on a Las Vegas land sale even though he hadn't personally owned the property for three years, property deeds show.

In the process, Reid did not disclose to Congress an earlier sale in which he transferred his land to a company created by a friend and took a financial stake in that company, according to records and interviews.

The deal itself isn't quite as bad as it sounds -- Reid didn't directly own the land, but he owned a stake in the partnership that did.

However, his failure to report the sale of the land appears to be a clear violation of disclosure rules. And the "informal" arrangement with a rather shady partner sure doesn't polish his ethical resume.

he joins Rep. William Jefferson in the Democratic on-deck circle. Stay tuned.

Reid, Hall of Shame, politics, midtopia

Cash not accepted here

NPR had an interesting take on the evolving cashless society this morning, telling the story of a small cafe in Washington, D.C. that has stopped taking cash (you'll have to click on their audio link to hear the story). The downside? Occasionally upset customers. The upside? No need to make change, no need to worry about having large amounts of cash on hand, no need to worry about serious employee theft, easy and accurate accounting of all sales and a lower fee from their electronic-payment processor.

Privacy advocates may note another downside if this becomes universal: every purchase you make will be tracked and recorded. That probably doesn't bother most people, and for those it may give pause, the convenience may outweigh the intrusion.

Meanwhile, a much-predicted occurrence -- cashless vending machines selling everything from snacks to cell phones -- may soon be arriving, bringing us one step closer to the Japanese, for whom buying all sorts of things out of vending machines is old hat.

Long a staple of science fiction, our lifetimes may see the disappearance or even criminalization of cash (after all, when every transaction can be electronic, the only purpose of losable, bulky cash becomes transactions that you don't want recorded). And a strange day that will be.
money, cash, politics, midtopia

Iraq death toll as high as 650,000?

That's what researchers at Johns Hopkins University are saying.

"Deaths are occurring in Iraq now at a rate more than three times that from before" March 2003, said Gilbert Burnham, lead author of the study and co-director of the Bloomberg School's Center for Refugee and Disaster Response, in a statement.

The total exceeds what other groups have found over a similar period, including the Iraq Body Count estimate that between 43,491 and 48,283 died up to Sept. 26.

That's an eye-opening number, especially because Iraq only has a population of about 26 million. Most of those deaths are attributed to violence, but some were credited to Iraq's creaky health-care system, which has deteriorated since the invasion.

But take it with a grain of salt. Such estimates are notoriously difficult to do. In this case they surveyed 1,850 Iraqi households containing 12,801 people. They then extrapolated the results to the entire country. The quality of the estimate depends on how representative the sample was, and how accurate the information received.

The study's authors, using the same methodology, estimated a death toll of 100,000 in 2004. And they acknowledge the potential unreliability of the data:

In accounting for error and bias in the study, the authors acknowledged that "extreme insecurity" in the region restricted the size of survey teams, the number of supervisors and how much time could be spent in each location. Family members might also have misreported deaths and ``large-scale migration'' out of Iraq could have affected overall numbers, the study said.

But I think it's safe to put the number of dead at "lots." And the death rate is substantially higher than it was before the invasion -- three times higher if you take the number at face value. Even if you discount the number substantially, it seems clear that the invasion has not saved Iraqi lives.

People die in war, and the civilian death toll is not necessarily a comment on the justness or the conduct of the war. But in this case it seems that yet another justification for invading -- Saddam's violent repression of his people -- is weakening fast. Because if this was the cure, the cure is apparently worse than the disease.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

Army plans no Iraq troop cuts before 2010

Just in case.

Not a good sign, but also just standard operating procedure: it's the military's job to be prepared for any contingency, and as Schoomaker says it's easier to cancel a planned deployment than to quickly dispatch extra troops.

That should, however, put the kabosh on any happy talk of looming troop withdrawals. It should also refocus attention on the strain the military is under to maintain the current troop levels -- including efforts by the Pentagon to cut the Army's budget. Responding to howls from the Army, Rumsfeld has essentially abdicated responsibility -- giving the Army permission to plead their case directly to the White House, but not weighing in himself. He granted similar permission to the Air Force and Navy, thus absenting himself from one of his main jobs.

What a way to run a war.

Iraq, Pentagon, budget, military, politics, midtopia

Republicans spin conspiracy theories

Remember how much conservatives and Republicans jeered when Hillary Clinton said she and Bill were victims of a "vast right-wing conspiracy"?

Well, now the shoe's on the other foot.

Leading Republicans, with the support of conservative media outlets, are charging that the Mark Foley scandal was a plot orchestrated by Democrats to damage the G.O.P.'s electoral prospects this November. According to the Washington Post, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert appeared on Rush Limbaugh's radio show and "agreed when the host said the Foley story was driven by Democrats 'in some sort of cooperation with some in the media' to suppress turnout of conservative voters" before the midterm elections.

Conservative talk-radio host Hugh Hewitt has said that Hastert had become the "target right now of the left-wing media machine," and House Majority Leader John Boehner has charged that the release of the Foley documents so close to the elections "is concerning, at a minimum."

The rest of the article is one journalist's explanation of how the Foley e-mails came to light, which shoots down many of the theories outlined above.

But the theories were junk to begin with. Was it plausible that the Democrats might pull something like this? Sure. Was there any evidence that they had? No. And the "suspicious timing" argument was silly, too. The e-mails and IMs are three years old; why wouldn't the Dems have released them in 2004 instead of waiting for the 2006 by-election? And if they were going to wait, why release them five weeks before the election? Why not two weeks, or one?

It was all just speculation -- pure, partisan speculation masquerading as fact. And a sad spectacle, too, because let's just say that it turned out to be true -- that Democrats released the e-mails. So what? Does that change their substance? Does that let GOP leaders off the hook?

The only way this could tar the Democrats is if they had the far-more-lurid IMs and sat on them, waiting for a moment of maximum political advantage. But again, there's no evidence that this happened.

What we do have, however, is clear evidence of right-wing hypocrisy and double standards when it comes to crying "conspiracy", and intellectual dishonesty when it comes to separating fact from fantasy.

Foley, politics, midtopia

North Korea may have miscalculated

Looks like everyone is mad at North Korea -- including, significantly, China:

North Korea must face "some punitive actions" for testing a nuclear device, China's U.N. ambassador said Monday, suggesting that Beijing may be willing to impose some form of Security Council sanctions against Pyongyang.

China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya told reporters that the council must give a "firm, constructive, appropriate but prudent response" to North Korea.

Okay, there are a lot of weasel words in there. But it does show that there limits to what China is willing to put up with from its oddball neighbor.

Meanwhile, a former military intelligence analyst weighs in with some additional options for dealing with North Korea. The include a naval quarantine, restrictions on air travel, aiding defectors, selling anti-missile technology to South Korea, Japan and Taiwan and cracking down on North Korea's criminal financing network.

Several of those would probably be considered acts of war by North Korea, and several would probably upset China, most notably selling advanced weaponry to Taiwan. But they do represent options short of war that could be used to pressure the regime.

nuclear, China, North Korea, politics, midtopia

What can we do about NK?

Okay, so I'm not sure why we're suddenly all atwitter about North Korea demonstrating it has nukes, since we've credited them with nukes for years.

And there's a possibility they don't actually have them.

But assuming they do, it would be churlish not to try to lay out some ideas for a solution.

The blogosphere is abuzz with the usual solutions -- bomb them, nuke them, invade them, bribe them, send them flowers, blame Clinton -- but let's disregard those. This is reality, not a video game. And reality, in this case, is messy.

Is there the will and capability to attack NK? Limited amounts of both, as long as China is willing to shelter its lunatic neighbor. But even if that weren't a problem, we'd have to choose a method:

Assassination? Beyond the moral and practical implications -- do we really want to send the message that trying to kill heads of state is okay? -- killing a paranoid recluse is technically very difficult, especially if you're not willing to kill massive numbers of innocent civilians in the process.

Bombing? Destroying underground nuclear facilities -- assuming we actually know where they are -- is also difficult. And North Korea's geography would lessen the impact of a bombing campaign.

Invading? Interestingly, the UN resolution that authorized the Korean War remains in force -- NK and SK are still technically observing an armistice (text here). But North Korea is home to some of the most rugged and most heavily militarized terrain on earth. It would take a serious application of force, and would be potentially very costly. Further, an invasion could trigger a nuclear explosion -- if Kim Jong-Il were crazy and desperate enough. More importantly, though, invading NK would almost inevitably lead to a confrontation with China. No sane person on either side wants that.

Sanctions? Sure. Except that NK is already one of the most isolated nations on earth. It will be difficult to harm them more than we are harming them now.

So what can we do?

If it came down to it, I would support targeted strikes to reduce NK's nuclear capability -- hitting the reactors, testing facilities, factories and mines that support their nuclear complex. We wouldn't get it all, but we could set them back a good ways, as well as sending a message to other would be nuclear powers.

But given the risks involved, that would be in extremis. Military force really needs to be a last, desperate alternative.

Our best and, really, only hope is to press China to do something about its client. China may feel an obligation to NK, and they may find NK useful as a buffer and a thorn in the side of the West -- a distraction from China's growing economic and military power. But China will never put NK's interest ahead of its own. And unlike Iran, NK doesn't have economic significance for China. Make the price attractive enough, and China will do what it considers necessary regarding NK -- either reining them in or deposing the Great Leader.

But China does not respond well to direct pressure. They will do things because they want to, not because we want them to. Any attempt to strongarm them will fail, as will any attempt to get them to act against their own best interests.

Luckily, there appears to be a relatively simple way to make China's interests coincide with our own.

With North Korea increasing its saber-rattling to nuclear proportions, it's only natural that South Korea and Japan would feel the urge to improve their defensive capabilities. And, since they're our allies, it's only natural that we would want to help them. Further, a more self-reliant SK and Japan would help reduce the military burden we bear in defending them. It's about time both countries assumed more responsibility for their own defense, and North Korea provides a convenient pretext for doing so.

But the last thing China wants is a spiraling arms race in the region. And it especially does not want a remilitarized Japan -- the memories of World War II are still too fresh and formative for that. It wants to become a regional hegemon, and it can't do that if two of its closest neighbors join Taiwan in becoming armed to the teeth, their weapons all pointed in China's general direction.

So without threatening China directly, we should start a program to help SK and Japan increase their military capabilities to deal with North Korean threats. Faced with the prospect of an arms race , I think China would instead choose to rein in NK or even depose Kim Jong-Il.

It would cost a fair chunk of cash -- but not anywhere near as much as another Iraq. And there's no guarantee it would work. But if it doesn't, then at least we have given SK and Japan the means to defend themselves, which is our fallback position anyway. And it carries much less risk, and a much higher likelihood of success, than the alternatives.

nuclear, North Korea, politics, midtopia

Iraq alternatives.... after the election

I've written before about the Iraq Study Group, a commission headed by James Baker that is looking at alternative strategies regarding Iraq.

But now it seems that one of the goals listed in the earlier post -- preventing a GOP train wreck in November -- won't be achieved.

Why? Because it won't issue its report until after the November elections.

There are a lot of ways to interpret that, but none of them particularly favor Bush. By the simple fact that it exists, a Republican-led commission of experts who think the current course is misguided undermines the administration position. The fact that they won't release the report until after the elections also suggests that what they're coming up with wouldn't prove helpful at the polls. For certain, sparking an internal GOP debate over Iraq right before the elections might hurt more than it helped, no matter how good his recommendations are.

Baker is spinning the change as best he can, of course, saying he wants to "take this thing out of politics". Maybe he really is, or maybe he's doing it at the behest of Democratic commission members. But I doubt it.

And it's telling that the administration is so insulated from new thinking that an outside commission is needed to come up with new ideas. By setting up the ISG, Bush has essentially outsourced the policy-making work of two Cabinet posts -- Defense and State -- as well as the National Security Advisor. Arguably he's also abdicated much of his own responsibility to lead in this matter. After all, blue-ribbon commissions are where difficult political questions are usually sent to die. And while the commission has pursued its work over the months, U.S. policy has remained relatively unchanged. Either Bush really believes the current course is the right one -- in which case the commission is irrelevant -- or he's waiting for someone to tell him what to do. Neither choice inspires much confidence.

Baker, Iraq, politics, midtopia