U.S. President George W. Bush and his team have not truly embraced multilateral diplomacy as they claim, only using it as a cover in the case of North Korea to hide a lost cause, a Washington Post columnist claimed Friday.
Charles Krauthammer, in his opinion piece to the daily, disputed that the Bush administration has gone from cowboy diplomacy to working with allies.
Multilateralism is preferred only under one of the two conditions, either when the allies can help accomplish something, or when there is nothing to be done and multilateralism gives one the cover of appearing to do something, he said.
"The six-party negotiations on North Korea are an example of the second," wrote Krauthammer, referring to nuclear disarmament talks involving South and North Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan.
Washington's chance to stop North Korea from going nuclear was during the father Bush and Clinton administrations, but nothing was done, he argued.
"And nothing can be done now," he said.
"The nukes themselves act as a deterrent against military measures. And no diplomat, however mellifluous, is going to talk a nuclear North Korea into dismantling the one thing that gives it any significance in the world."
Like most multilateral efforts, the six-party talks "give only the appearance of activity, thereby providing cover to a hopelessly lost cause," said Krauthammer.
The multilateral forum last opened in November but has gone dormant since due to Pyongyang's boycott.
The problem with Iran holds out some hope since, unlike North Korea, it has not crossed the nuclear threshold, and multilateral efforts and incentives are in the offing, Krauthammer said.
"But this will not work," he said. "The Russians and Chinese are already sending signals that they will allow Iran to endlessly drag out the process."
"Realistically speaking, the point of this multilateral exercise cannot be to stop Iran's nuclear program by diplomacy.
That has always been a fantasy," he said.
The aim of multilateral diplomacy is only to "slightly alter" the calculation of terrible consequences between military action and allowing Tehran to acquire nuclear weapons, he said.
Washington, Aug. 25 (Yonhap News)
Six-party talks only guise to lost cause: WP columnist |
