Here’s something interesting. Hillary Clinton appeared this morning on This Week With George Stephanopoulos and said that we are looking into placing North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. Asked if they’re actually sponsoring any terrorism, Clinton said, ” “We’re going to look at it. There’s a process for it. Obviously we would want to see recent evidence of their support for international terrorism.”
So, we are telling the world that we are thinking about classifying North Korea as a supporter of terrorism at the same time that we are telling the world that we haven’t even determined yet if that’s true. What’s funny is that this makes a perverse kind of sense. Why? Well, the reason we took them off the list of state sponsors of terrorism wasn’t related to our estimation of their activities, but as an incentive for stopping their nuclear program and allowing some inspections. The idea is that, since they didn’t keep their end of the bargain, we shouldn’t keep ours. So, we’ll just redeclare them a sponsor of terrorism without any regard to the facts. One has to wonder what evidence we had in the first place.
I understand the concept of carrots and sticks, but Clinton shouldn’t make an announcement like this. It hurts the credibility of our government. If we want to punish North Korea for their nuclear program, we should do that in some other way than accusing them of terrorism. And if they are supporting terrorism, we should provide some evidence when we announce a change in classification, not say we are thinking about changing the classification before we’ve even established the facts.
Another word of advice to Clinton…
Do not count of your chickens before they hatch, like this:
Clinton said she expected a strong sanctions resolution against North Korea to emerge from the U.N. Security Council, with the backing of China and Russia, which previously balked at such measures and hold veto powers on the council.
“I think what is going somewhere is additional sanctions in the United Nations — arms embargo, other measures taken against North Korea with the full support of China and Russia,” she said in reference to the ongoing U.N. deliberations.
China and Russia have not been with us consistently in the past, so it is probably a bad idea to assume they will be with us now. It gives them extra leverage to craft things their way when you announce their cooperation ahead of time. It would be better to say simply that we are working together and will hopefully agree to something soon. You will look awfully silly and weak now if Russia or China vetoes the resolution.
