George R. Packard
President, International University of Japan;
Director of the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University, President, U.S.-Japan Foundation
George R. Packard was dean of SAIS from 1979 to 1993 and is now director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies as well as professor of East Asian studies at the school. He is also president of the International University of Japan. From 1965 to 1967, he was chief diplomatic correspondent for Newsweek. Prior to that, he served as special assistant to U.S. Ambassador to Japan Edwin O. Reischauer. In March of 1998, he was appointed president of the U.S.-Japan Foundation.
Packard Report - Mar. 2007
For the first time since taking office in 2001, President George W, Bush is serious about reaching an agreement in the Six Party Talks that would end North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
In the past, he has been persuaded by Vice President Dick Cheney and the Neo-Cons to take a hard line and to show that the 1994 deal that President Clinton made with North Korea was worthless. They persuaded him to lump North Korea with Iran and Iraq as part of the "Axis of Evil," and advised against any bilateral meetings with the North Koreans.
Now, however, the power within the administration has shifted. Rumsfeld is gone, Cheney has lost credibility on Iraq. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in charge of the North Korean problem. She desperately wants to score a victory during her term in office - just two more years - before she returns to civilian life, With blame for the Iraq war mess creeping up on her ankles, she sees an agreement with North Korea as her one best last chance to prove her skills as a diplomat.
Rice maneuvered John Bolton, Under Secretary of State and a fierce hawk on North Korea, into taking the post of Ambassador to the United Nations, Now Bolton is out on the street, unable to win Senate confirmation, He is still attacking the new tentative agreement with North Korea, but he is powerless to prevent it.
Bush has confidence in Rice and trusts her (who else can he trust?). She in tum has recruited John Negroponte to be her Deputy Secretary of State. He is a seasoned diplomat whose portfolio will include Northeast Asian security affairs, He is a true professional who knows how to get a deal done. His credentials with the Far Right Neo-Cons are satisfactory, so he will cover Bush's flanks on the right side.
Rice then authorized Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill to probe the North Koreans for common ground, and permitted him to meet alone with the North Koreans - something his predecessor, Jim Kelly, was never allowed to do.
Hill was permitted to offer "carrots" as well as sticks - rewards as well as punishments - to Pyongyang. Apparently this worked, and there is a fragile but real agreement for the next 60 days. No one can be sure if Kim Jong-il and his military people will buy the deal - but at least there is a start.
What is fascinating is that Hill has been encouraged to "sell" the deal to American foreign policy elite groups, who still can influence the White House and public opinion. Hill has been speaking this week to the Council on Foreign Relations, CSIS, Brookings and other think tanks. This is evidence that the State Department wants talks to go forward, and is trying to head off any rear guard action by Cheney & Co.
Of even more significance is the fact that Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright have been enlisted to help sell the agreement. You will recall that Albright met with Kim Jong-il in the closing days of the Clinton Administration, in the late fall of 2000, and nearly got a deal.
Next Monday, March 5, the National Council on US Foreign Policy will meet off the record and privately with the seven-member North Korean delegation in New York. Kissinger (a Republican) and Albright (a Democrat) will be present, as will two representatives of the US Government. Kissinger will push hard to convince the Koreans that a deal makes sense. He will also use his continuing influence to reassure Bush that all is well.
There will follow official talks with the North Koreans. No one can be sure that they will be authorized to take the next step. But with 53% of the American people now calling for a deadline for withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Bush would love to change the subject and take on the mantle of statesmanship by reaching a serious agreement.
The sad irony is that he could have had this deal five years ago, before the North Koreans had nuclear weapons in their arsenal.
- English Version Archive -
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