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COMMENTARY
May 27, 2009
Testing
One of the advantages of having Barack Obama as president of the hyperpower, is that it puts his great mass of fans, in America and abroad, in the position of having to think about real problems. It turns out the solution to each of them was more complicated than "get rid of Bush." The world does not spontaneously change when the president changes.North Korea, Iran, and a seriously unstable Pakistan continue to present plausible and pressing nuclear threats. Islamist terrorists continue to seek soft targets right around the world; and the fanatic Islamist ideology continues to win adherents, even in New York prison cells. For that matter, problems of disease, poverty, petty tyranny and oppression, with or without war, continue to afflict our species, regardless of who comes and goes from an office in Washington. America's allies become no more likely to pull their weight, and no less apt to strike self-serving rhetorical postures. The banking problems, the environmental and other notional issues, must be seen in a new light. It is no use just inventing bogeymen, and accusing them of imaginary crimes. Suddenly the facts matter, and the advantages of pretending disappear. Can we really afford to drain the whole economy to douse a financial brush fire? Can we afford to demonize the whole wealth-creating class? If the "threat of global warming" is (as becomes increasingly obvious) a gigantic imposture, can we afford to remain hostage to the environmentalists' perpetually escalating demands? The farce over Guantanamo illustrates all of this. From a grand initial "symbolic gesture" -- a promise to vindicate "human rights" by closing this offshore holding tank for the world's most dangerous terrorists -- the Obama administration learned why Guantanamo was set up, and why each decision was made, right down to waterboarding three of the inmates to get urgent information on the next terrorist hits. The Guantanamo arrangements were a bad solution to an intractable problem, but all the other solutions were worse. And now, Obama's "symbolic gesture" must confront Dick Cheney's hard facts, and the new president may begin to learn what is wrong with symbolic gestures. The Obama administration has taken a pass on confronting Iran's nuclear threat to annihilate Israel: the president publicly giving the ayatollahs until the end of the year to do what they will, after his symbolic offer of direct talks was mostly spurned. Instead, he will focus on getting concessions out of Israel, in the hope that a cosmetic "two state solution" can change the optics throughout the Middle East. The clock continues ticking. But in North Korea, no opportunity remains for postponement. On Monday, the North Koreans performed a controlled underground explosion of a nuclear device of up to 20 kilotons. This was their second nuclear test: the first, in October 2006, was for a device of less than one kiloton. The first test went badly; this latest appears to have gone well. From these facts alone we see that their technicians have made immense progress. Last month, Pyongyang tested another long-range ballistic missile, also in defiance of all the agreements it had made with the Bush administration, and its neighbours. We thus have a rogue state indifferent to world opinion that is rapidly acquiring the means to alter the geopolitical map by its ability to incinerate a city such as Tokyo. What, then, is the symbolic gesture that will make them stop? For the North Korean politburo remains unmoved by the president's various expressions of grave concern. The policy of the Bush administration, prior to 2007, was to apply real and increasing pressure on the regime, from cutting off aid to intruding upon its international financial transactions. This persuaded North Korea to make the agreements they have now comprehensively broken. The U.S. State Department remains in love with "engagement" -- it is their professional myopia -- but the time comes when a president has to act. In the case of North Korea, that time is now. America's new president has the support, potentially, of a Chinese government that is seriously distressed by Pyongyang's behaviour. He has a Japanese government that never doubted the need for consistent, decisive action. And in Lee Myung-bak, he has a South Korean president who is a fully-declared U.S. ally, who enjoys popular support for confronting the crisis, and who appreciates the failure of past symbolic gestures. Therefore President Obama has an unusually promising opportunity to show that he is not a chump. He has indeed what may be his make-or-break opportunity to show not only North Korea, but through what he does there, Iran and the rest of the world, that he can move beyond symbolic gestures. But he must take steps that visibly change North Korea's behaviour to pull this off. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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