Costs of War: Playing Pyongyang
By Shaun Waterman for ISN
The external pagejailing by a court in Pyongyang of two US journalists for an unspecified “grave crime … against the Korean nation" and illegally crossing the border from China is the latest act of theatrical brinkmanship by the isolated communist state.
Once again, the reclusive North Korean regime, in the midst of external pagearranging the succession of the nation’s “Dear Leader,” President Kim Jong-Il, according to US intelligence officials quoted by the Wall Street Journal, has demonstrated the ability to seize both the international spotlight and the diplomatic initiative from the US and its allies in the so-called Six Party Process - China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.
US diplomats insist that the 12-year hard-labor sentences meted out to the two young reporters - Laura Ling and Euna Lee - are separate from the ongoing US effort at the United Nations to sanction North Korea for its continued efforts to develop ballistic missiles and build up what most estimates say is currently a small arsenal of nuclear weapons.
“We've been very careful in what we've said,” external pagepointed out Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, “because, clearly, we don't want this pulled into the political issues that we have with North Korea … This is separate; it is a humanitarian issue. And the girls should be let go.”
Reacting to news Monday of the sentencing, State Department Spokeswoman Megan Mattson told ISN that the US was “deeply concerned.”
“We are engaged through all possible channels to secure their release,” she said.
As part of that effort, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Ian Kelly verbally external pagejousted with reporters at the department’s press briefing Monday, pushing back against suggestions that the two were pawns or hostages. “I have seen … no overt indications that [Pyongyang is] using these two young ladies as pawns,” he said.
There has to be “a political demand” for the two to count as hostages, he added. “It would seem to me that we're missing that part of a hostage situation.”
But in reality, the connection is clear enough. The North Korean leadership appears determined to show they are unafraid to defy the global consensus which President Barack Obama has said is the key to dealing with rogue regimes.
In response, a group of conservative Republican senators has written Clinton, asking that North Korea be put back on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism. The Bush administration de-listed the country - formally known as the Democratic Peoples republic of Korea, or DPRK - last October, as part of its diplomatic strategy to engage Pyongyang in negotiating an end to its nuclear weapons program.
“The DPRK has neither ended its sponsorship of terror activities nor moved in the direction intended when President [George W] Bush de-listed the DPRK. In fact, the DPRK has done just the opposite,” wrote the senators last week.
Sunday, Clinton external pagesaid officials would consider the move. “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.”
The list is governed by the Anti-Terrorism and Arms Export Amendments Act of 1989. Although the statute does not specify the criteria, legislative language passed with it says these should include, but not be limited to, whether the country provides terrorists with sanctuary from extradition or prosecution; arms, explosives and other lethal substances; logistical support; safe houses or headquarters; planning, training or other assistance; direct or indirect financial backing; and diplomatic facilities such as support or documentation.
One of the senators who wrote to Clinton, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, external pagesaidMonday that Pyongyang had never stopped supporting terrorism. “President Bush removed North Korea from the … list, not because they had stopped supporting terrorists but in hopes it would be a carrot to encourage them to join negotiations.”
“The carrot didn’t work,” DeMint concluded. “It’s time for the stick.”
Mattson told ISN Security Watch that the State Department was “looking very carefully” at the issue, saying officials would “follow the provisions of the law as the facts warrant.” She added she did not know of any timeline for the process to be completed.
Some have expressed concern about the possibility of re-designating Pyongyang as a state sponsor of terrorism, fearing that to exercise leverage on the separate issue of counter-proliferation would risk creating the perception that the state sponsors’ list was a political tool used to punish any nations US officials want.
“The key is how credible the evidence [of state sponsorship of terrorism] is … and how much of it can be made public,” former career State Department counter-terrorism official Michael Kraft told ISN Security Watch.
According to an external pageassessment earlier this year from the non-partisan and generally authoritative Congressional Research Service, “reports from French, Japanese, South Korean and Israeli sources described recent North Korean programs to provide arms and training to Hizbollah in Lebanon and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, two groups on the US list of international terrorist organizations. Moreover, a large body of reports describe a long-standing, collaborative relationship between North Korea and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.”
Whether or not North Korea meets the criteria for inclusion on the list and whether or not it is re-listed, may well be moot points. The regime is already subject to extensive US sanctions because of its proliferation activities, and there is no doubt that officials see the center of gravity of their efforts as lying elsewhere.
According to Kelly, the United Nations, where US diplomats continue talks over a new Security Council resolution with “real teeth,” is where “the real action” is.
But hawks, like former Bush administration counter-proliferation official Robert Joseph, say that the diplomatic option has so far failed to produce any results.
“For North Korea, there are no penalties,” he external pagewrote at the weekend. “It never gives up its plutonium, it never gives up its reprocessing facility, it never gives up its reactor … and it never allows effective verification of what it is willing to promise in exchange for the assistance that keeps the regime in power.”
The regime “prolongs its survival with each successive crisis,” he concluded.
The litmus test for hawks like Joseph is whether the US can enforce counter-proliferation measures like the boarding of North Korean vessels suspected of illegally exporting nuclear or ballistic missile technology. Pyongyang has made clear that it would regard such steps as an act of war and it remains unclear how far US allies in the Six Party process would support them.