A Neocon's long shadow Over Korea

Avoiding Peace at All Costs.

Among the strains and crises buffeting our hapless administration is the problem of nuclear-armed North Korea, now locked in a tightening military alliance with Russia. Politico National Security Daily, a faithful mouthpiece for administartion talking points, cites officials privately conceding that “Washington has made little to no progress in slowing North Korea’s rogue nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, and if it can’t do that, it can only do so much to halt North Korean troop deployments to Russia, too.”

U.S. policy on the Hermit Kingdom has long been littered with blunders whoever is in charge in Washington, not least Obama’s “strategic patience” approach of starving the country while waiting expectantly for the Pyongyang government to collapse. But there was once a moment when it seemed that Beijing was ready and eager to broker a peace deal between the Koreas and forestall Pyongyang’s then nascent program to develop a nuclear weapon. The effort was sabotaged by none other than Paul Wolfowitz, the man who would later earn enduring and well-deserved infamy as the driving force behind the invasion of Iraq. As the following account, first reported in my biography of Donald Rumsfeld, certifies, Wolfowitz could not only start wars, he could snuff out chances of peace too.