Asia Times: Beaten about the Bush: US clouds Korea's sunshine


	April 25, 2001	atimes.com

The Koreas

PYONGYANG WATCH
Beaten about the Bush: US clouds Korea's sunshine
By Aidan Foster-Carter

"Pessimism of the intelligence, optimism of the will". That was the watchword in adversity of the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci. The fact that he died in jail under Mussolini suggests that optimism of the will may have its limits. But when things are going from bad to worse, what else can you do?

It's hard to be optimistic about North Korea just now. As discussed in last week's "Pyongyang Watch", Kim Jong-il and his peculiar realm seem to be once more headed full-steam astern, back into hermit kingdom mode. And while that's their choice and ultimately their responsibility, what I find galling and frankly heart-breaking is that it's the crude and crass choices of others, who should know better - and they'd better know better, for all our sakes, since like it or not they pretty much run the world - which have given North Korea this excuse to beat a retreat and wiggle off the hook of engagement.

Yup, you know who I mean. George W Bush has made clear his contempt not only for Kim Jong-il but also for Kim Dae-jung. Just when the latter's patient diplomacy had broken through half a century of hostility, to achieve last year's North-South summit and the peace process that came out of it - a feat for which he was rightly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize - he must now watch as his "Sunshine" policy is blotted out by a big black cloud gratuitously launched by his leading ally. What a way to treat a friend.

Of course, honorable men can, do and will disagree on how to handle North Korea. But there can be no excuse for the disgraceful treatment Kim Dae-jung received in Washington last month. Behind the empty rhetoric of friendship, the reality - plain to see - was that the government of the most powerful country on earth doesn't actually have a policy about one of the most dangerous places on earth - even though it has 37,000 troops stationed there and 33,000 GIs died last time the place exploded. That's scary.

Worse, it looks in no hurry to acquire one - or even agree on one. Differences within the administration were embarrassingly clear. Secretary of State Colin Powell, cautious and pragmatic, said he was ready to carry on missile talks where the Clinton team left off - close to a deal, by all accounts - but was slapped down for being off message. Bush's stance seems to be: heck, them there's bad guys, and we ain't talkin'. Period. Granted, a new administration needs time to think - or rethink. But this is no way to do it: substituting posturing for policy while the latter goes on hold. In fact, inaction is an action too - as is clear from the consequences. Nearly two months later, the bitter taste still lingers and the ripples just keep spreading.

Here's a simple litmus test. Which if any Koreans are happy about this? Answer: Northern hawks. For them Bush is a dream come true: the perfect pretext to take their bat home, and revert to the snarling of old. Those medal-becrusted Korean People's Army generals must be beaming with relief. No more nonsense now about breaching defenses by relinking railways across the front line, or Kim Jong-il visiting the enemy's lair. All that is on hold now, for who knows how long. Conversely, imagine how exposed this leaves those in Pyongyang who dared to stick their necks out and argue for peace. They risked being stigmatized as traitors. In North Korea, being on the losing side of such an argument can be fatal. Nice one, George.

Consider too, as the Bushmen patently didn't, the effects in Seoul. Even as etiquette, to in effect tell a key ally - and the first Asian leader to meet Bush since his inauguration - that you don't give a damn how he sees the situation in his country is pretty hick manners. Confucius, meet Texas; and note who's wearing the cowboy boots. It's also lousy diplomacy to humiliate the most pro-American leader South Korea has ever had. That weakens Kim at home, and boosts nascent anti-Americanism. Clever, huh? Especially interesting is the reaction of South Korean conservatives. The opposition Grand National Party (GNP), whose leader Lee Hoi-chang may well follow Kim Dae-jung into the Blue House less than two years from now, shares US Republicans' critique of "Sunshine" as appeasement. But even as they made partisan political capital out of it, the GNP too felt slighted that the US could treat Korea so cavalierly.

To slighted, add rattled. It's easy for US hawks to strike macho poses and rattle sabers at remote rogue states from safely across the Pacific. Donald Rumsfeld, the new hard-line US defense secretary, thinks (as a committee he chaired reported in 1998) that some years from now, on present form, North Korea might be able to lob a crude rocket in the direction of Alaska. Maybe. But put that highly hypothetical scenario against a hard fact: Seoul's 10 million people live every day within North Korean mortar range. If anyone is to assess Pyongyang's threat and how to handle it, it must be South Korea first and foremost.

Even ex-president Kim Young-sam, now a fierce hawk, boasts of telling Bill Clinton that he would not commit South Korean troops to a US attack on North Korea. That was in 1994 when fear of the north's nuclear program almost unleashed a second Korean war. Luckily, Clinton shifted to an engagement approach. We can only hope Bush has a less steep and scary learning curve - and soon. Now that's optimism of the will!

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