Korean deal needlessly delayed

It's amazing to me how the Bush Administration will go to just about any lengths to pat itself on the back, even when it flies in the face of facts and reason.

For some perspective on the deal that was just struck with North Korea to suspend its nuclear weapons program, one must go back to January 2001. The Clintons were leaving the White House, and the Bushes were moving in. The mood in the new administration was decidedly anti-Clinton.

Along that vein, the dialogue America had with North Korea, Iraq and the combatants in Israeli / Palestinian conflict vanished almost overnight. The general modus operandi of the new administration about most policies was if the old Clinton team supported a policy, it was anathema to the Bushes. Out with the old (even if successful) and in with the new. (Honestly, this just isn't my opinion, either; books by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and former Anti-Terrorism Chief Richard Clarke outlined this turn of events in their books.) Tragically, that also included an obsession with Al Qaeda, but that's the subject for another post.

The newly installed neocons in the White House derided the Clinton Administration, both covertly and overtly, for negotiating with countries like North Korea. One didn't have to be a diplomat to read between those lines - Clinton and his minions were all being pussies - the Bushes weren't going to give North Korea a plug nickel, and no, they still can't have a nuclear weapon, thank you very much.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when word out of the Korean peninsula was that a deal had been reached between the North Koreans and the U.S., China, Russia, Japan and South Korea. Korea has agreed to halt its nuclear weapons program in return for millions of gallons of crude oil and other aid. In other words, exactly what the Koreans agreed to in 1994.

During Bush's first term, had the president decided to negotiate with the North Koreans, who knows? Perhaps they would not have acquired a nuclear weapon, which most believe the country has, at least in small quantities.

The heart of the problem is that the Bush Administration equates dialogue with weakness and concession. It's not. But differences can be overcome between sworn enemies if there is dialogue. Even during the Cold War, American presidents met with their Soviet adversaries.

I do have hope that the Bush Administration will learn the value of diplomacy from the Korean experience by beginning talks with the Iranians and Syrians. Much can be accomplished and learned by talking to your enemy. One thing's for sure - one can't learn anything about an adversary if there is no dialogue.

It's too bad that this administration is so driven by ideology and much less by common sense and diplomacy. But, it's not too late. It's just too bad that we still have a president learning on the job over six years after his inauguration.