Politics: Victory! Kind of.
I'm trying to understand how Bush and co. got away with claiming that our offensive ass-kicking of Iraq somehow convinced North Korea to drop their demand for one-on-one talks about their ongoing nuclear weapons project. Because I don't feel like a meeting between N.K. and the United States with only China squeaking a chair awkwardly to the table meets the U.S. demand for "multilateral" talks, as Josh Marshall pointed out in his post yesterday.
But the administration calling this a victory -- and worse yet the media joining them in that characterization -- is foolish to say the least. This Post item, while never calling the U.S.'s bluff, admits that the Chinese are serving as host, as well as participant.
North Korea and China, who have all along been the two loudest international voices decrying the U.S. position opposing bilateral talks between us and Pyongyang, got exactly what they wanted, and got it on what amounts to North Korea's non-starving, non-delusional home turf (as opposed to anything that would happen inside N.K.). And the U.S., as best as I can see, got fleeced. Our demand was simple: we wanted every country that could possibly have a stake in a nuclear North Korea at the table. That means Japan, South Korea, Russia (and incidentally, should mean Taiwan, but I'm not even going to touch that) as well as China and North Korea. Our demand wasn't met, and it's being called an administration triumph, and is being un-subtly linked to the victory in Iraq.
Give me a break.
I'm trying to understand how Bush and co. got away with claiming that our offensive ass-kicking of Iraq somehow convinced North Korea to drop their demand for one-on-one talks about their ongoing nuclear weapons project. Because I don't feel like a meeting between N.K. and the United States with only China squeaking a chair awkwardly to the table meets the U.S. demand for "multilateral" talks, as Josh Marshall pointed out in his post yesterday.
But the administration calling this a victory -- and worse yet the media joining them in that characterization -- is foolish to say the least. This Post item, while never calling the U.S.'s bluff, admits that the Chinese are serving as host, as well as participant.
North Korea and China, who have all along been the two loudest international voices decrying the U.S. position opposing bilateral talks between us and Pyongyang, got exactly what they wanted, and got it on what amounts to North Korea's non-starving, non-delusional home turf (as opposed to anything that would happen inside N.K.). And the U.S., as best as I can see, got fleeced. Our demand was simple: we wanted every country that could possibly have a stake in a nuclear North Korea at the table. That means Japan, South Korea, Russia (and incidentally, should mean Taiwan, but I'm not even going to touch that) as well as China and North Korea. Our demand wasn't met, and it's being called an administration triumph, and is being un-subtly linked to the victory in Iraq.
Give me a break.
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