[shniad at sfu.ca: [R-G] NORTH KOREA'S HALLOWEEN SURPRISE]

[Hans Ehrbar]

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From: shniad at sfu.ca
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Subject: [R-G] NORTH KOREA'S HALLOWEEN SURPRISE
Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2002 22:01:51 PDT
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http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j101802.html	

October 18, 2002

NORTH KOREA'S HALLOWEEN SURPRISE

–Kim Jong-il's nuclear 'trick or treat' may nix Iraq war plans 

Another day, another threat of war – this time on the North Korean front.
Surely Pyongyang's startling admission that indeed it is actively pursuing
the nuclear option – "and more powerful things as well," according to this
New York Timesreport – has pulled the rug out from under the War Party, even
as the U.S. gets ready to move on Iraq. Saddam, we are told, may have
"weapons of mass destruction" at some point down the line, but North Korea
has now upped the ante considerably by strongly hinting that they already
have them, with the unspoken addendum: and so whaddaya gonna do about it?

The Times reports that the bluster has suddenly gone out of the American
hegemon:

"Yet the administration's demands on North Korea tonight were muted. 'The
United States is calling on North Korea to comply with all of its
commitments under the Nonproliferation Treaty and to eliminate its nuclear
weapons program in a verifiable manner,' an American official said. There
was no discussion of the consequences if that appeal was ignored, even
though the announcement came only hours after President Bush (news - web
sites) issued some of his toughest and most ominous-sounding warnings yet to
Iraq."

"Muted" is right. This White House doesn't want to go down in history as the
administration that presided over the vaporization of Tokyo and large
segments of South Korea. How they will prevent that outcome is bound to take
up more of their attention, as the crisis worsens, and leave room for little
else. The President recently received Ariel Sharon at the White House, and
reportedly promised that the Israelis will get at least two weeks notice
before we attack Iraq. If I were Sharon, I wouldn't hold my breath.

The U.S. is pretty cocky when it comes to pushing around a dilapidated
fifth-rate military power like Iraq: Saddam's army is in far worse shape
than it was a decade ago, when it was decimated during Gulf War I. But the
Stalinist Sparta of North Korea is a far different matter. Aside from its
large but malnourished land force of nearly two million, the world's last
Stalinists have developed long-range missiles capable of hitting Tokyo. Its
fighter planes are short of fuel: but they're also only 6 minutes from
Seoul, the South Korean capital. Washington must also contend with the
fiercely nationalistic and grim defensiveness of the Hermit Kingdom,
developed in response to a series of foreign invasions – or maybe it's
something in the water. At any rate, compared to North Korea's "Great
Leader" Kim Jong-il, Saddam Hussein is a veritable pussycat. 

Oh, the irony and symbolic fecklessness of our foreign policy! The White
House was so confident, the chickenhawks were so arrogant, the warhawks were
so gung-ho to go in there and prove that the U.S. of A was going to assert
its global hegemony after the humbling shock of 9/11 – and it all went up in
smoke in an instant, as the North Korean monster rose from hidden depths and
took the Bushies by surprise. Just in time for Halloween….

This trick is no treat. Back in 1994, CNN reported these comments by
then-Deputy Defense secretary John Deutch:

"We do not want to have North Korea think that they can steal a march on us
when we are involved in Iraq."

Don't look now, but that is precisely what has happened.

The Clinton administration's solution to this problem was a strategic
perspective that guaranteed the ability to fight two and a half wars at
once. But as CNN correspondent Jamie McIntyre remarked at the time of
Deutch's comment:

"Winning two wars depends on getting to two wars, something the U.S. now
can't do without months of warning."

The Bushies had no clue: when the U.S. ambassador confronted the North
Koreans with the evidence of a secret nuclear program, they denied it
initially. But when they came back the next day, the North Korean delegation
did the unexpected: they admitted it. 

Having abandoned the two-and-a-half wars doctrine of the Clinton era,
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his clique of civilian defense
intellectuals were intent on "modernizing" the military for a "new era" of
unchallenged American hegemony. It was all to be based on high technology,
and the assumption that no single threat of any economic or geopolitical
weight could arise in the foreseeable future. There were no obstacles on the
road to empire. As one commentator put it:

"Nixing the 'two war' military will help accelerate the Pentagon's process
of change, moving from defending a world that was to promoting peace in a
world that is."

But not so fast….

This developing crisis on the Korean peninsula vastly complicates the
projected Iraq attack on two levels: militarily and also on the
diplomatic-political front. Aside from having to face obvious logistical and
readiness issues, the White House now has to deal with the North Koreans'
open defiance. For the conquest of Iraq was supposed to establish the
precedent of the new U.S. doctrine of "pre-emption," i.e. America's imperial
prerogative to take out anyone, anywhere, at any time, on the mere suspicion
that they might one day pose a threat. Now, with the North Koreans openly
thumbing their noses at the would-be American hegemon, flaunting their nukes
and their defiance, how can the U.S. continue to issue ultimatums to the
considerably less well-armed-and-dangerous Saddam? The Bushies found out
about the North Korean nuclear gambit 12 days ago, just as the congressional
debate over the Iraq war was gearing up. They sat on the information until
the vote was in – because it would have entirely undermined their position.
Why come down on Iraq when the crazed North Koreans really do have "weapons
of mass destruction"? This is a question the Bushies are clearly unprepared
to answer. 

Our war-hawks have no one but themselves to blame. The Washington Post cites
a U.S. official who, in noting the genesis of the crisis, "said the North
Koreans decided to go ahead with the program after President Bush identified
the country as a member of an international axis of evil." The U.S.
maintains that the evidence predates the President's infamous speech, but no
one can doubt that naming North Korea as a potential target of American
wrath must have convinced the already paranoid "Great Leader" that he'd
better prepare for war. 

Back in March of last year, I predicted that the Bush administration's
undoing of the reconciliation process between the two Koreas was a sign of
impending disaster. No sooner had Colin Powell announced that the process
begun under the Clinton regime would continue with the new administration
then the President contradicted him less than 24 hours later during talks
with South Korean President Kim Dae-jung. 

It seems like two decades rather than two years ago that the two Koreas were
on the verge of an historic reconciliation. The leaders of a divided nation
met for the first time in half a century, and many analysts were confident
that Kim Jong-il had decided North Korea must avoid complete economic
collapse by opting for a "soft landing." The Bushies put the kibosh on that,
however, and then pushed the Koreans over the edge with the "axis of evil"
nonsense. Powell has far too much class to say "I told you so" – but, then
again, he doesn't have to….

In the typically hyperbolic style of the "mainstream" news media these days,
Bush's confrontation with Iraq was being characterized as comparable to the
Cuban missile crisis. Of course it wasn't anything even close – but the
Korean crisis is. The North Koreans could wipe out any number of Japanese
cities with the push of a button, and have demonstrated this ability by
shooting missiles over the Sea of Japan. 

This is what the "pre-emptive" triumphalism of George W. Bush & Co. has
brought us – or, rather, brought the Japanese and South Korean people. As is
usual with the civilian chickenhawks who rule the "Defense" Department
roost, other people will have to pay the price of their hubris. To anyone
related or close to U.S. military personnel stationed in South Korea or
Japan, I strongly suggest that you give them a call, write them a note, and
tell them you love them. This may be your last chance.

The neocon dweeb who coined the "axis of evil" phrase is no longer in the
President's employ, having been relieved of his post by a White House that
doesn't take to people who blow their own horns too loudly. However, the
damage was not in the phraseology, but the policy – and a lot more heads
will have to roll, on a much higher level, before the real roots of the
unfolding foreign policy disaster are excised. 

With the military already rising in open opposition to the war plans of our
civilian chickenhawks, who envision a "cakewalk" in Iraq, the prospect of a
two-front war is no doubt throwing the Pentagon into a panic. It is their
worst nightmare come true. Already in open rebellion against this
administration's new strategic perspective, the generals took the field
against their own commander-in-chief over the question of war with Iraq –
and now they are confronted with this. The grumbling in the barracks is
going to get louder, and pressure on the administration to put off the Iraq
attack indefinitely, at least until this current crisis blows over, is bound
to ratchet up.

Tripped up by their own hopped-up rhetoric, the War Party faces a strategic
conundrum. After all the crowing during the Clinton years of America as "the
indispensable nation," and, more recently, the out-and-out neo-imperialism
of the chickenhawks, who are already divvying up the Iraqi spoils, somebody
has finally called the Americans' bluff. 

We may have been saved from the prospect of war in the Middle East – only to
be faced with an even greater crisis on the other side of the Asian
landmass. We are out of the frying pan, and into the fire – and isn't that
the story of empires throughout history?

–Justin Raimondo
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