WASHINGTON  – The United States says North Korea’s use of more nuclear fuel for weapons violates the North’s past commitments at international disarmament talks.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters Tuesday that the Obama administration is focused on getting back to stalled six-nation nuclear talks.

He says that “reprocessing plutonium is contrary to North Korea’s own commitments” at those negotiations and violates United Nations resolutions.

North Korea’s official news agency says the country had finished reprocessing 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods. The North has also warned Washington to agree quickly to direct talks or face the prospect of a growing nuclear arsenal.

WASHINGTON  – The Obama administration let North Korean leader Kim Jong Il save face by releasing two jailed Americans to former President Bill Clinton. The payoff – maybe not right away – is likely to be renewed dialogue with Pyongyang about its nuclear weapons program.

After meeting with Clinton, who made an unannounced visit to the North Korean capital Tuesday, Kim pardoned and freed the young journalists who allegedly crossed into the country from China earlier this year. They were serving 12-year prison sentences.

“It could provide an opportunity to move forward on the nuclear issue, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” said Victor Cha, former Asia chief at the National Security Council. “The history with the North Koreans, as they have just done the past few months, is to put themselves out on a ledge. And they always need help getting off that ledge.”

‘Not so fast,’ said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who had spoken with her husband after the pair was released.

She said the U.S. was not counting on a breakthrough but also said it could lubricate the way for the North to return to six-party talks about its nuclear program with the U.S., Russia, China, Japan and South Korea.

But there, perhaps, is the rub. The North Koreans have been demanding bilateral talks with Washington. The U.S., however, has shot down such overtures, insisting that it will work only through the six-party format.

North Korean behavior – ever an enigma – has included in recent months the withdrawal from those talks. The regime also launched a long-range rocket, conducted a second nuclear test, test-fired a barrage of ballistic missiles, and restarted its atomic program in defiance of international criticism and the U.N. Security Council.

Obama, while pushing heavy sanctions against the North for its recent nose-thumbing of the international community, also has been low key as he pursues a resumption of talks with the Stalinist regime.

That’s been difficult because the North is widely believed to be embroiled in a succession struggle after Kim reportedly suffered a stroke and began setting up a 27-year-old son to take power. Its saber-rattling was widely believed to indicate that its military wanted to show strength as a successor is chosen.

The White House has taken pains since Clinton’s arrival in Pyongyang to play the mission as a private one designed only to win the release of Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36, both with former Vice President Al Gore’s Current TV media venture. They were captured while on assignment to collect material for a report about trafficking of North Korean women into China.

Bill Clinton undertook the mission, a senior administration official said, only after the North assured the White House that the reporters would be freed and allowed to return home with the former president.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to detail the back-channel negotiations, also said the north rejected Gore as a suitable emissary. The journalists’ families, Gore and the White House then turned to Clinton. The official said President Barack Obama did not speak with Clinton about the mission.

Daniel Sneider, associate director of research at Stanford University’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, said the journalists’ release followed weeks of quiet negotiations between the State Department and the North Korean mission to the United Nations.

Clinton “didn’t go to negotiate this, he went to reap the fruits of the negotiation,” Sneider said.

In photographs of Clinton with Kim, the former president stood somberly at the North Korean leader’s side, showing no signs of warmth. The official photographs were obviously intended for domestic consumption. Clinton is highly regarded in the North and his appearance with Kim will bolster him at home.

Pardoning Ling and Lee satisfied North Korea’s need to continue maintaining that the two women had committed a crime while dispatching the former president as emissary served the Obama administration’s desire not to expend diplomatic capital winning their freedom, Sneider said.

“Nobody wanted this to be a distraction from the more substantially difficult issues we have with North Korea,” he said. “There was a desire by the administration to resolve this quietly, and from the very beginning they didn’t allow it to become a huge public issue.”

As a former leader, Clinton was a good choice to represent the United States in the delicate deliberations, according to Sneider. He had the cachet to get an audience with Kim but could claim to be acting as a private citizen.

North Korean media said Clinton had carried a message of apology from Obama and that the former president and Kim held wide-ranging talks, but White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said those claims were “not true.”

Still, the diplomatic minuet was a success, more so if Obama indeed cracked open the door to resume dialogue with North Korea, whose nuclear program stands to destabilize Asia and compromise Obama’s promise to work toward a world free of nuclear weapons.

Just don’t hold your breath.

CARMICHAEL, Calif.  – The father of one of the two American journalists convicted and imprisoned in North Korea said Monday the family won’t comment publicly while the case is developing.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee were sentenced to 12 years in a labor camp by North Korea’s highest court for allegedly entering the country’s territory. They were working for San Francisco-based Current TV when North Korean guards seized them March 17 near the North Korea-China border.

Doug Ling spoke briefly to The Associated Press at his home in the Sacramento suburb of Carmichael.

“We’re going to keep a low-profile until we hear something better about the situation,” he said.

Euna Lee, 36, lives in California with her husband and 4-year-old daughter, Hannah.

A New York-based spokeswoman for the Ling and Lee families, Alanna Zahn, said Monday they would have no comment.

Supporters held vigils last week in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Washington and other cities urging the North Korean government to release the journalists.

“The only thing I can say is that we still remain hopeful that Laura and Eunie will return home safely,” said Beth Diebels, 35, a former classmate of Ling’s at Del Campo High School who organized last week’s march in Sacramento.

Laura Ling, 32, is the younger sister of Lisa Ling, a reporter for National Geographic “Explorer” TV.

A receptionist at Current TV in downtown San Francisco told reporters gathered outside the office Monday that the company would have no statement.

WASHINGTON  – President Barack Obama assailed North Korea Monday for new missile tests, saying the world must “stand up to” Pyongyang and demand that it honor a promise to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

Appearing on the White House steps, Obama said that its latest nuclear underground test and subsequent test firings of short-range ground to air missiles “pose a grave threat to the peace and security of the world and I strongly condemn their reckless action.”

It was his second statement within hours of the tests, the latest in a number of nuclear actions that Obama said “endanger the people of Northeast Asia.” He called it “a blatant violation of international law” and said that it contradicted North Korea’s “own prior commitments.” Obama had released a written statement chastising the North Koreans in the early morning hours of Monday.

In his statement in the White House Rose Garden, he noted that the latest tests had drawn scorn around the world. Pyongyang’s actions “have flown in the face of U.N. resolutions” and had deepened its isolation, he said, “inviting stronger international pressure.”

“North Korea will not find security and respect through threats and illegal weapons,” the president said. “We will work with our friends and allies to stand up to this behavior. The United States will never waver from our determination to protect our people and the peace and security of the world.”

In Pyongyang, North Korea said that it had carried out a powerful underground nuclear test – much larger than one conducted in 2006. The regime also test-fired three short-range, ground-to-air missiles later Monday from the same northeastern site where it launched a rocket last month, the Yonhap news agency reported, citing unnamed sources.

The rocket liftoff, widely believed to be a cover for a test of its long-range missile technology, drew censure from the U.N. Security Council, which scheduled a meeting in New York for later Monday.

Reining in Pyongyang’s nuclear program has been a continuing problem for U.S. administrations, dating to the Clinton administration. Former President George W. Bush labeled North Korea as a country that was part of an international “axis of evil,” but the United States subsequently removed Pyongyang from its list of official state sponsors of terrorism when it shut down a nuclear installation late in the Bush administration.

The question now is calculating precisely the nature of a threat and what are options are available to the Obama administration.

Obama left no doubt about his intention to work with other world leaders to bring diplomatic pressure to bear on Pyongyang, and the United States could still try to resuscitate so-called Six-Party talks with the North as well as work with other nations at the United Nations. And while neither past administrations nor this one has taken the military option off the table, diplomacy seemed the card most likely to be played in the short term.

“We are gravely concerned by North Korea’s claims. We are analyzing the data,” the State Department said in a statement.”The U.S. Geological Survey confirmed that a seismic event took place consistent with a test. We are consulting with our Six Party and U.N. Security Council partners on next steps.”

Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, last month dismissed an earlier rocket launch as a failure- both technologically and as an effort to market its missiles to other countries.

“Would you buy from somebody that had failed three times in a row and never been successful?” he asked during a briefing at the Pentagon. Cartwright said the abortive missile launch showed that North Korea had failed to master the midair thrust shift from one rocket booster to another, an integral part of ballistic missile technology.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the military Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on CBS’s “The Early Show” show that “all of those things point to a country I think continues to destabilize that region and in the long term, should they continue to develop a nuclear weapons program, poses a grave threat to the United States.”

He did not discuss whether there were any changes in U.S. military alert status.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, leading a congressional delegation on a tour in China, said, “If today’s announcement is true, these tests would be a clear violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1718, which requires that North Korea not conduct any further nuclear tests. Such action by North Korea is unacceptable and cause for great alarm.”

Wendy Sherman, a former Clinton administration adviser on North Korean policy, told The Associated Press: “We’re sending the message that there is international law; there are international norms; that countries will be isolated from the international community.”

“U.S. officials had expected that North Korea might conduct a second nuclear test,” she said. “That said, this is as President Obama said, ‘of grave concern.’ “

WASHINGTON  – As North Korea spurned a U.N. condemnation, the Obama White House called on the reclusive communist nation Tuesday to “cease its provocative threats” and respect the will of the international community.
 
Presidential press secretary Robert Gibbs said Pyongyang’s vow to restart its nuclear reactor and boycott international disarmament talks is “a serious step in the wrong direction.” He said the international community won’t accept North Korea “unless it verifiably abandons its pursuit of nuclear weapons.”

“We call on North Korea to cease its provocative threats, to respect the will of the international community, and to honor its international commitments and obligations,” President Barack Obama’s chief spokesman said at his daily briefing with reporters.

His remarks came just as the International Atomic Energy Agency said North Korea is expelling its inspectors and has told the U.N. nuclear watchdog that it is reactivating all of its nuclear facilities.
 
North Korea is retaliating for the U.N. Security Council’s condemnation Monday of North Korea’s recent rocket launch. The country insists its nuclear ambitions are peaceful; the United States and other countries insist they are not.

Gibbs said the so-called six-party talks offer the country the best path to earning international acceptance, and he said the United States stands ready to work with North Korea and its neighbors through that process.

He said the administration is “quite pleased” with the U.N. Security Council’s unanimous condemnation of the rocket launch. The Security Council demanded an end to missile tests and said it will expand sanctions against North Korea.

“We’re pleased with what we got,” Gibbs said.

WASHINGTON – The United States is sending its new senior North Korea envoy to Asia early next week to meet with negotiators trying to revive nuclear disarmament talks.

The trip comes as North Korea’s rhetoric grows increasingly hostile. North Korea is threatening to punish anyone trying to disrupt its plan to conduct what the U.S., South Korea and other neighboring countries believe may be a long-range missile test.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters Thursday that she is dispatching Stephen Bosworth to the capitals of four countries that have been working with Washington to get Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program – Russia, Japan, China and South Korea.

Bosworth says it has yet to be decided whether he will meet with North Korean officials.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday that North Korea is trying to “drive a wedge” between the U.S. and South Korea, CNN reports.

(Richmond Times-Dispatch, 02-01-09)
Donald Nuechterlein, a political scientist, is the author of “America Recommitted: A Superpower Assesses Its Role in a Turbulent World.” Contact him at nuechtd@cstone.net.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The United States has fought four costly wars since 1945 and none of them ended as World War II did, with complete victory.

In Korea, after nearly three years of huge American troop casualties, the war ended in 1953 in a draw with North and South Korea divided along roughly the same border they had at the start of the war.

The Vietnam war, begun in 1965, was an even costlier one for U.S. troops. And it ended in defeat when North Vietnam’s army took control of the south after Congress cut off funding for U.S. operations in 1975.

The third and fourth wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, are still in progress. Although the outcome in Afghanistan is not clear, Iraq appears to be on track to become a stable but fragile democratic state.

In Afghanistan, U.S. and allied forces that ousted the Taliban regime in 2001 now find a resurgent Taliban that threatens security in large parts of the country. Many experts conclude that Afghanistan is a fractured country, threatened by Taliban forces in the south and east, and by warlords elsewhere. Unlike Iraq,
Afghanistan has never had a government that controlled the entire country.

In all of these wars, the presidents made difficult choices: Agree to an unsatisfactory outcome (Korea), accept a stalemate and eventual defeat (Vietnam), persevere to achieve success (Iraq), and, until recently, neglect the enemy’s resurgence (Afghanistan).

LET’S EXAMINE the choices made on Vietnam and Iraq by presidents Richard Nixon and George W. Bush and consider the alternatives President Obama has as he deals with Iraq and Afghanistan in the coming years.
A noted historian, Margaret MacMillan, authored an excellent book two years ago titled Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World. She recounts how Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, secretly planned a presidential trip to China in 1972 to end a 23-year freeze on U.S. relations with Communist China. Here, according to MacMillan, is the situation that Nixon faced when he entered the White House in 1969:

“The Soviet Union and its allies had watched with pleasure as American power failed to crush North Vietnam. American allies had watched uneasily as their superpower showed its weakness. Their publics had increasingly turned sour on the United States; in Canada and Western Europe, huge demonstrations demanded that the United States get out of Vietnam. Much of the criticism, and not just from the left, was disturbingly anti-American. The United States was portrayed as an international bully.”

Nixon believed that opening relations with China would persuade both China and the Soviet Union to support a negotiated settlement in Vietnam that preserved the south as a viable state. Although he succeeded in withdrawing American ground troops in 1973, he failed in Vietnam when North Vietnamese forces took over the south in 1975 and forced a humiliating evacuation of all Americans.

In Iraq in 2007, George Bush faced this difficult choice: whether to withdraw American forces, as domestic and international opinion was demanding, or order a surge of forces in an effort to reverse the downward trend in security that threatened to turn into full-scale civil war. He chose a surge. After a year of sustained operations, it brought security to nearly all of Iraq’s cities as well as countryside.

WHAT ARE Barack Obama’s options in Afghanistan and Iraq?

U.S. commanders in Afghanistan have asked for 30,000 more troops to fight the Taliban and to strengthen the Kabul government. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said last week that he has recommended about 12,000 additional troops. Yet, none of our NATO allies, with the exception of Britain, Canada, and the Netherlands, is willing to add to current forces. Germany doesn’t currently permit its troops to engage in combat.

If the president adds troops in Afghanistan, he will need to decide soon whether to seek a negotiated settlement of the war, one that doesn’t result in a withdrawal of American forces. Secretary Gates has stated that the United States will continue to pursue al-Qaida leaders hiding in neighboring Pakistan. The alternative to a negotiated settlement is adding many more combat troops in an effort to stabilize the entire country.

The president’s choice in Iraq is far easier. He will be able to withdraw the troops within 16 to 18 months and be reasonably confident that the new government, which assumes power this month, will take responsibility for policing the country. Washington will continue to provide logistic, intelligence, and training support.

If things go well in Iraq in the next two years, Barack Obama will see the country’s successful transition to a stable, democratic government. And if so, part of the credit will go to George Bush, who was not willing to accept a defeat.