It looks like the Bush White House has hit the diplomatic flip-flop trifecta. It’s quite an accomplishment.
In April, administration said U.S. officials should not have any contact with the Syrian government, accusing the Syrians of meddling in Lebanon, supporting terrorism, and being unhelpful on Iraq. A month later, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem for a one-on-one discussion.
In January, the administration rejected the notion of talking to Iran out of hand, saying it would amount to “extortion.” Four months later, after a generation of silence, U.S. and Iranian officials had direct bilateral discussions.
And from the outset of the Bush administration, the idea of bilateral talks with North Korea was considered folly. As Fred Kaplan explained, “As long as the North Koreans were pursuing nuclear weapons, even to sit down with them would be ‘appeasement,’ succumbing to ‘blackmail,’ and ‘rewarding bad behavior.'”
Well, guess what.
In a sharp reversal of strategy, the Bush administration on Wednesday secretly dispatched its top North Korea negotiator to the country’s capital, Pyongyang, for one-on-one talks about the North Koreans giving up their nuclear arsenal.
The visit is the first in five years by a senior American official. The State Department confirmed Wednesday night that the negotiator, Christopher R. Hill, was en route to Pyongyang from Tokyo. [Mr. Hill arrived in Pyongyang on Thursday, The Associated Press reported.]
I’m not sure how Tony Snow will argue this isn’t a reversal — he always thinks of something — but it’s worth remembering that Bush has embraced the Democratic policy on diplomacy almost completely.
Indeed, the administration is being awfully nice to North Korea right now.
Mr. Hill’s trip came just hours after the United States found a way to return to the North roughly $25 million in funds that were frozen for several years. The United States had frozen the money, saying it came from counterfeiting and trade in missiles and nuclear equipment.
It took months for Washington to clear obstacles preventing the money’s return, a move that hawks in the administration had argued was deeply mistaken.
It looks like Rice is kicking Cheney’s butt on the foreign policy front, doesn’t it?
I’m also curious how Bush’s political allies will respond to all of this. For years, they’ve defended the president’s stubborn refusal to engage rivals on the international stage, suggesting that silence was akin to strength, and that bilateral talks reward “evildoers.”
And then the president turns around and engages in the kind of diplomacy Dems have recommended for years. Are they fine with that?