N. Korea, 6, and Bush, 0 - NYT Kristof

[rndmprsn]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/26/opinion/26kristof.html?hp

...The single greatest failure of the Bush administration's foreign policy concerns North Korea. Mr. Bush's policies toward North Korea have backfired and led the North to churn out nuclear weapons, and they have also antagonized our allies and diminished America's stature in Asia.

The upshot is that there's a significantly greater risk of another Korean War, a greater likelihood that other Asian countries, like Japan, will eventually go nuclear as well, and a greater risk that terrorists will acquire plutonium or uranium...

...But if the Bush administration had just adopted the policies that Colin Powell initially pushed for - and that Mr. Bush largely came to accept several years later - then this mess could probably have been averted.

You don't have to take it from me. Charles Pritchard, the ambassador and special envoy who was the point man for North Korea in the first Bush administration, says of this administration's decision-makers: "They blew it." Another expert still involved in North Korea policy puts it this way: "Their A.B.C. approach - 'Anything but Clinton' - led to these problems."

[htuttle]

1. I don't know if I agree with this

"The single greatest failure of the Bush administration's foreign policy concerns North Korea."

His policies concerning North Korea are a failure alright, but it's hard to stack it up against the festering sore that is his Iraq policy. And then there's the utter strategic loss of Latin American, which American presidents have kept under their thumb for over a hundred years (and now seems to be electing 'leftist' anti-IMF leaders all over the continent). Latin American would NEVER have gotten 'off the leash' while Poppy Bush was in the Emperor's seat.

So it's hard to say if NK was the greatest failure -- there are so many to choose from!

[ClintonTyree]

2. Damn it, how many times do people have to be told...

There's no OIL in North Korea! :eyes: It's not like they're important or anything. They don't have any natural resources we can steal, what's the point of negotiating with them?

[bemildred]

3. Tsk, not one mention of Bolton. nt