NightWatch

For the Night of 14 June 2009

North Korea: The operative portions of the official statement on 13 June follow. These are direct quotes, not exaggerated US press misconstructions.

“Upon authorization, the DPRK Foreign Ministry resolutely denounces and rejects the UNSC Resolution 1874, and at this current stage when an all-out confrontation with the United States has started, we declare that the following countermeasures will be taken to defend the nation's dignity and the country's sovereignty:

First, the whole amount of the newly extracted plutonium will be weaponized .

Currently, more than one third of the total amount of spent fuel rods has been reprocessed.

Second, uranium enrichment work will begin.

In accordance with the decision to build a light-water reactor on its own, development of uranium enrichment technology to guarantee nuclear fuel has successfully progressed and has entered the test stage.

Third, if the United States and its follower forces attempt to carry out a blockade, it will be regarded as an act of war and we will resolutely respond militarily.”

Despite what The Associated Press headlines reported, the North did not threaten nuclear war. In fact the statement was more measured than NightWatch expected.

One noteworthy point is the implication that they had not weaponized plutonium from the newly reprocessed rods. Second they have not reprocessed plutonium from all the fuel rods that they hold in storage. A third point is that they are just at the testing stage of uranium enrichment. These are admissions against North Korea’s interests which provide some basis for credibility.

The warning of a military response is infrequent in a Foreign Ministry statement and means that the statement carries the approval of the Ministry of the Peoples Armed Forces.

If there is any good news, it is that the Foreign Ministry, rather than the Supreme Commander or the National Defense Commission, communicated the official statement. That directs outside inquiries and protests to the Foreign Ministry who are the proper venue for negotiations. The North has not closed the door on talks, it would seem. However, a violation of sovereignty, which includes by definition stopping a North Korean ship, will result in shooting. The offshore islands along the Northern Limit Line remain the most likely arena for a firefight.

Missile launches are also pending, but missile test launches do not defend sovereignty. A missile attack defends sovereignty but risks general war, which does not seem to be what the North intends, based on this statement.

Comment: A former US negotiator during the Bush 43 regime wrote in the Washington Post today about what he learned from his experiences with the North Koreans. To old hands, it is gratifying that he learned so much. It is also dismaying that he learned on the job and that there seems to be no institutional knowledge at the State Department about North Korea, at least in the policy bureau. INR is a different matter, but evidently its considerable store of expertise was not in the policy loop much, based on the Post article.

Readers should know that the counterpart with whom US Ambassador Hill and his team were negotiating, First Vice Foreign Minister Kang, has been in his job, as the First Vice Foreign Minister and the top American handler, for more than two decades. His deputies have been in their jobs almost as long.

Thus for Hill and his cohorts, they are the polished professional agents of a new administration. For Minister Kang, Hill and his team are the third or fourth set of such folks with whom he has had to deal, train, educate, and then negotiate. Kang must experience a tiresome sameness about this.

The goals of the North Koreans have barely budged since Kim Il-sung died, but the stated US policy goals have shifted with each administration. Fortunately the ultimate goals of maintaining the peace in Northeast Asia and the safety of the Republic of Korea have remained constant and immune to the vagaries of Foreign Service officers learning on the job and changes of administration. For that, the Defense Department should take a bow.

The interesting thing about the supposed changes in North Korean goals cited by the former negotiator is that the record of negotiations justifies them in holding out for more because more always comes. They do not change so much as they keep probing to find the bottom line US position, which often seems to have no floor.

This comment makes no policy recommendation. It is about the needless disadvantages of constantly learning the same old lessons on the job when up against a group of seasoned and cunning North Korean negotiators. We can keep the peace, but can’t seem to make it self-sustaining.

Pakistan: The armed forces have been ordered to carry out a full-scale offensive against the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP -- the Taliban Movement of Pakistan) and its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, Reuters reported 14 June. North-West Frontier Province Governor Awais Ghani told reporters that the military and law enforcement agencies have been ordered to use all resources to eliminate the militants.

Comment: The Pakistan Army backing up the paramilitary forces have made significant progress in routing the militants. They did so with conventional military operations at which they are proficient. They did not use US-style counterinsurgency doctrine which the corps commanders pretty much disdain, according to news sources.

They are likely to have success in routing Mehsud and his men as well, assuming they commit the level of forces they committed to the Swat operations. The outcome of a fight between lightly armed tribal fighters and a conventional army using superior force was never in doubt in their own territory.

The key point that many have made is that this level of effort is not sustainable for achieving a permanent end to insurgency. The action by the tribal lashkars last week was the most hopeful sign for a durable reduction of the insurgency to a police problem.

Afghanistan: The governor of the most violent province in Afghanistan, Helmand, said that the government controls only eight of the 13 districts in the province, The Associated Press reported June 14. Helmand Governor Gulab Mangal said the government has no control in three districts in the north of the province, and two in the south, and that he hopes Afghan and NATO security forces can regain control of those regions in coming weeks.

The Afghan government assessment of security in Helmand is better described as holding the district center buildings in eight districts and the provincial capital buildings in Lashkargah, and holding nothing in five districts. Put another way, except for the five districts under Taliban control, the rest of Helmand is a combat zone in which the Taliban have the upper hand, according to the national government.

Iran: The latest reporting from Tehran is that folks returned to work calmly on 15 June, but more demonstrations were expected later in the afternoon. The demonstration images are all taken where the western reporters congregate, mainly Tehran. They cannot be considered representative of the mass of the electorate, only of the pampered elite, as the rural farm population would put it.

Israel: In Jerusalem today, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a speech on the Middle East peace process in which he called on Palestinians and Arab states to begin peace negotiations without preconditions immediately, Haaretz reported.

In a clever bit of political legerdemain, Netanyahu said Israel would accept a Palestinian state, but that such a state cannot become a terrorist base and said any future Palestinian state must be demilitarized for peace to be possible. He also promised not to build any new settlements in the West Bank, but would not forbid new construction in existing settlements and ruled out a withdrawal from settlement territories.

The coup de main was when he said Palestinians must accept Israel as a Jewish state, and that the refugee problem must find a solution outside of Israel's borders.

Some TV news stations described this as a great concession by Netanyahu because he mouthed the words Palestinian State, evidently in the same breath. The Palestinian reaction was less Pollyanna-ish.

Palestinian lawmaker Mustafa Barghouti said that Netanyahu "did not endorse a Palestinian state, he endorsed a ghetto," CNN reported. Barghouti made the statement minutes after Netanyahu delivered a speech on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, in which he called for a demilitarized Palestinian state.

Netanyahu carefully crafted language that he knew the Palestinians would reject.

End of NightWatch for 14 June.