Yesterday Barack Obama had been President of the USA for four months and five days when the loopy North Korean regime detonated its second nuclear blast (the first was three years ago — three years before Obama was President.) Obama-haters everywhere have gleefully pointed their fingers at his diplomacy-centred approach to foreign affairs.
THE new nuclear test carried out by North Korea demonstrates the complete failure, so far, of US President Barack Obama’s softly-softly diplomacy and willingness to start afresh with old enemies.
It may be that Obama’s approach is well worth a try, but so far its yield is zero.
So, how’s all this negotiating and diplomacy (such a refreshing change!) working out?
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I think Iran and North Korea agree that Obama is a very nice man, who speaks beautifully.
Of course, the Bush administration had eight years to disarm North Korea and Iran, but both nations continued to build their arsenals of nuclear technology and weapons during the previous President’s term. Why then, must four-month-and-five-day-President Barack Obama take full responsibility for the world’s failure to neutralise these threats, and how exactly can a fresh administration’s different approach to diplomacy be measured in such a short time span?
11 Comments
Good post, Scott.
It was predictable that the usual suspects would attribute NK’s behaviour to Obama being ’soft’. The fact is that the Bush administration also used diplomacy with NK, with some modest success. Since invasion is a ludicrous option that would only be favoured by the loopiest of right-wingers, and since sanctions are unlikely to be effective, as the regime doesn’t appear to care, I’d be curious to know what non-diplomatic solutions there are to the problem.
While the Big O certainly isn’t responsible for the test in any meaningful way, it is fair to say that he has responsibility for the issue.
If you accept that the US has a duty to try and prevent this sort of thing, Obama is the person resonsible for making the running. From memory, he took it up himself (obliquely) in his inauguration speech.
I think that on the great spectrum of terrible Sheridan articles, this one doesn’t rate too badly. That Obama’s approach is yet to yield results on an issue he’s taken up is manifestly true. What’s not true is that yesterday’s test would not have occured but for Obama’s new approach.
At the moment, he owns the problem. Over time, he’ll own the outcomes too.
It seems to be a typical Sheridan column – assert that someone/something he disagrees with is wrong, then spend the rest of the article blabbing on about the background information without ever managing to (i) explain how the person/policy he disagrees with has caused the outcome, or (ii) explaining what should be done differently.
According to the right, 9/11 was Clinton’s fault…
So according to their logic, the test in Nth Korea can still be attributed to the Bush regime.
Of course it isn’t BigO’s fault, of course it’s typically Sheridan; but if you were as prominent a pro-Howard, pro-Bush, proGOP Hawkish Culture Warrior as Sheridan, an objective, logical, balanced etc NewsLtd columnist you surely ain’t!
For those who didn’t read (or have forgotten) Matthew Sharpe’s (Feb 2006) brilliant analysis “The Closing of the Australian Mind?” it’s on http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/seminars/matt-sharpe.htm in which Sheridan features:
“What is more, neither do some of these figures even attempt to deny that they have close connections with American neo-conservatism. To take one example, Greg Sheridan, “the most influential foreign affairs analyst in Australian journalism” (The Australian). Sheridan at times positively gloats about his connections with neoconservatives in high places. To quote from Sheridan’s column describing his “dizzying week” in Washington in July 2002:
“There is a core of faith in the Bush administration that the US-led coalition will prevail in Iraq. And ‘I am sitting in the office of Optimism Central, here in the Pentagon where Paul Wolfowitz, the US Secretary of Defense, chief intellectual architect of the Iraq invasion and high priest of the neoconservatives sits.’”(my italics)”
(Note: I’ve used single quotation marks to indicate Sharpe’s italics)
Good journalism, like all good analysis, requires E.Hemmingway-Postman’s excellent “crap detector”; cult-like dedication to any cause requires ST Coleridge’s, “willing suspension of disbelief”. The days when Sheridan had the former have long given way to his preference for the latter.
So is Sheridan saying that North Korea developed and tested a nuclear device within three months after it realised the new US President was a softy?
Perhaps Obama should have continued Bush’s axis of evil rhetoric, which really put Kim Jong-il in his place.
The worst of Sheridan’s rant is it assumes Obama is doing nothing, is Mr Sheridan privy to all that is going on in the State Deparment and all other arms of US govt.? Is he privy to all that is going on at the UN?
Wah – NK did not throw one together in 3 months. They just blew up one of the ones they were hiding for Saddam Hussein.
Probably those he didn’t hide in Iran, DB.
TD: While the Big O certainly isn’t responsible for the test in any meaningful way, it is fair to say that he has responsibility for the issue.
I don’t see it that way. China is currently the only superpower which formally supports NKs military agenda. in addition it supplies some 90% of its oil, 80% of its consumer goods and 45% of its food. if any nation has responsibility for the rise of north korea and its nuclear objectives then you can’t look beyond China. certainly the US doesn’t.
if china didn’t continue to support NK it would arguably be a non-issue today. only bush luvvies like Sheridan would be so blinkered foreign policy wise to try and blame Obama for NKs ambitions.
The point Sheridan raised about Kim (I’m so ronery!) being ill and not in the best of health was a good point though. What does a man with absolute power and everything at his fingertips do when he realises he is just a mortal and will some day pass away? Follow in his fathers footsteps to reunite the country? How do you achieve your operational objectives free from retaliation at the strategic level? Simultaneously threaten an opponents strategic installations whilst pursuing your operational objectives ie. if Kim can threaten a US city with nukes on a missile, he has the ability to punish the U.S. if they come to South Korea’s aid in the event of an invasion.
Is it Obamas fault – hell no. Is it his responsibility? Hell yes! There are about 35,000 U.S. troops in South Korea which just about all and sundry agree are the ‘tripwire’ for greater U.S. intervention if North Korea tries something. Greg has been a bit melodramatic here but I do recall him criticising bush on many occasions about this issue. Have sympathy for the people of North Korea but never under estimate a totalitarian regime with an ageing leader. Whatever Obamas supposed ’socialist’ tendancies (as I have heard him be accused of being) the N.K. regime is on another planet in terms of what could go wrong and he will have to use both soft and hard U.S. power to keep the status quo. Pity the poor N.K. citizens though.