Today’s Boston Globe quotes Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer as having said last week: ”The situation in Iraq involves somebody who has used force in the past to attack and invade his neighbors. That is not the history of North Korea for the last 50 years. And so it’s not exactly analogous. The world is not – cannot – just be treated as a photocopy machine where policies in one part of the world need to be identically copied for another. It’s a much more complicated endeavor than that.”
(“North Korea, Iraq threats differ, US says,” To read more of this Boston Globe piece click here )
A front-page David Sanger piece in this Sunday’s New York Times (“U.S. Eases Threat on Nuclear Arms for North Korea”) indirectly quoted Secretary of State Colin Powell, like Fleischer performing a high-wire act while dangling over North Korea. Here’s the passage, starting with Sanger’s analysis:
“Still, the diplomatic, nonconfrontational approach the administration has taken has clearly put Mr. Bush’s aides in the odd position of explaining why they are massing troops around Iraq, as it lets inspectors roam the country and releases lists of weapons scientists, while insisting on patient diplomacy with a country that has expelled those inspectors and announced it will proceed immediately to restart plutonium production.
“Mr Powell argued today that the approach makes sense because intelligence officials believe North Korea has probably been an undeclared nuclear power for some time but has never used any weapons or threatened to use them. President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, by contrast, has used chemical weapons before and, Mr. Powell says, has demonstrated far more evil intent, seeking to dominate the Middle East.” (“U.S. Eases Threat on Nuclear Arms for North Korea,” David E. Sanger)
Forget the question of whether this administration has been diplomatically “patient” with North Korea, a distinctly disputable point, at least it’s good to know that the way you demonstrate “evil intent” in this world is by “seeking to dominate the Middle East!” That perhaps gives Iraq a bit of evil company.
In any case, this would all be hilarious if the results in Iraq and the Koreas weren’t so potentially horrifying. After all, who was it back when was it who insisted that the evil states of the world were in fact all off the same “photocopy machine”? It was our Dear Leader, in his famed Axis of Evil speech, who began the plunge into this particular crisis of evil. The Axis of Evil was more or less Ronald Reagan’s Evil Empire concept updated for the moment after Darth Vader reconciled with Luke Skywalker and only a few ex-imperial storm troopers were left wandering the landscape. If Bush hadn’t linked Iraq, Iran and North Korea in cookie-cutter fashion, we wouldn’t be reading the tortured explanations of the moment. Now, Bush officials find themselves twisting awkwardly in the wind created by their President’s blowhard speech.
Check out Peter Preston’s sardonic Guardian version of the present Korean crisis. Tom
“Mr Powell argued today that the approach makes sense because intelligence officials believe North Korea has probably been an undeclared nuclear power for some time but has never used any weapons or threatened to use them. President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, by contrast, has used chemical weapons before and, Mr. Powell says, has demonstrated far more evil intent, seeking to dominate the Middle East.” (“U.S. Eases Threat on Nuclear Arms for North Korea,” David E. Sanger)
Forget the question of whether this administration has been diplomatically “patient” with North Korea, a distinctly disputable point, at least it’s good to know that the way you demonstrate “evil intent” in this world is by “seeking to dominate the Middle East!” That perhaps gives Iraq a bit of evil company.
In any case, this would all be hilarious if the results in Iraq and the Koreas weren’t so potentially horrifying. After all, who was it back when was it who insisted that the evil states of the world were in fact all off the same “photocopy machine”? It was our Dear Leader, in his famed Axis of Evil speech, who began the plunge into this particular crisis of evil. The Axis of Evil was more or less Ronald Reagan’s Evil Empire concept updated for the moment after Darth Vader reconciled with Luke Skywalker and only a few ex-imperial storm troopers were left wandering the landscape. If Bush hadn’t linked Iraq, Iran and North Korea in cookie-cutter fashion, we wouldn’t be reading the tortured explanations of the moment. Now, Bush officials find themselves twisting awkwardly in the wind created by their President’s blowhard speech.
Check out Peter Preston’s sardonic Guardian version of the present Korean crisis. Tom
Kim is a baby rattling the sides of a cot
It is wrong to overreact to the supposed threat of North Korea
By Peter Preston
December 30, 2002
The GuardianThe trouble with North Korea – the echoing trouble over the years – is knowing when to laugh. And that is precisely the trouble now, as Pyongyang twists Washington’s tail in malign parody of Iraqi standoff: historic melodrama replayed as farce.
Saddam doesn’t have the bomb yet, but George thinks he needs 300 UN inspectors sitting outside every palace. Kim Jong-il may or may not have a few bombs, but he does have 8,000 spent fuel rods and a poky old nuclear reactor at Yongbyon with three UN inspectors sitting in the car park since 1994.
While Saddam submits, Kim snaps his fingers and snarls. The UN trio prepare to depart. The security council heaves with apprehension. Even Donald Rumsfeld doesn’t fancy making a meal of this one.