Washington,
Oct 13 -
“Earlier this week, North Korea detonated what it claims was a nuclear weapon. Some on the Left have erroneously blamed the Bush Administration for this unfortunate turn of events. Among other things, they’ve criticized President Bush for failing to enter into one-on-one talks with Kim Jong Il, the unpredictable North Korean dictator. This criticism, however, ignores recent history and the extent to which the Clinton Administration’s naïve policy of appeasement help set in motion this week’s events.
“In the mid-1990s, the U.S. did in fact enter into bi-lateral talks with North Korea that produced the diplomatic debacle known as the Agreed Framework. Thanks to former President Jimmy Carter, who informally negotiated the agreement on behalf of the Clinton Administration, the U.S. reversed more than four decades of official policy and promised to remove economic sanctions against North Korea in place since the Korean War, to give North Korea free food, oil, and even nuclear energy (tax-payer funded) while Kim Jong Il promised to abandon his nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
“Unfortunately, the Agreed Framework wasn’t worth the paper on which it was written. For the next six years, Kim Jong Il, in effect, extorted concession after concession from the Clinton Administration, all the while pursuing nuclear and long-range missile technology. Even as then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright clinked champagne glasses with Kim Jong Il during an official trip to the Stalinist state, North Korea was receiving nuclear secrets from A.Q Khan, the now notorious black market nuclear scientist from Pakistan. Not until 2002 did we fully learn the extent to which the Clinton Administration had been duped by Kim Jong Il -- a fact Albright herself conceded in a 2004 interview on Meet the Press.
“Unbelievably, some are calling for a return to this failed ‘champagne diplomacy’ that President Bush wisely ended. If this was 1999, the U.S. would no doubt offer some other concessions in return for another empty promise from Kim Jong Il. But this is 2006, and President Bush understands that a North Korean policy that’s all carrot and no stick is no way to protect the American people and their allies from renegade dictators pursuing weapons of mass destruction.”
