Neocon jumps ship
(TM note: I worked for Bob Joseph on the NSC staff. A decent guy, but he was a card-carrying member of the Neocons, the only organized cabal I witnessed in my 28 years in government.)
Sensing Shift in Bush Policy, Another Hawk Leaves
By DAVID E. SANGER
New York Times
WASHINGTON, March 20 — Among the hawks in the Bush administration, Robert Joseph long occupied a special perch.
As the architect of much of the administration’s strategy for countering nuclear proliferation, he helped engineer the decision to exit the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, worked secretly to squeeze Libya to give up its nuclear weapons program, and created a loose consortium of nations, now numbering more than 80, committed to intercepting illicit weapons at sea, in the air or on land.
But last month Mr. Joseph quietly left the State Department, where he was under secretary for arms control and international security, telling colleagues that, as a matter of principle, he simply could not abide the new agreement with North Korea that the Bush administration struck in February.
Mr. Joseph has declined to talk publicly about why he left, but he told colleagues that he thought the deal would prolong the survival of a North Korean government he has publicly called “criminal” and “morally abhorrent” while failing to require it to give up the weapons it has already produced. In an interview, Mr. Joseph made clear that he “does not support the policy” that President Bush has now embraced.
“The approach I would have endorsed was to continue to put pressure on the regime,” Mr. Joseph added.
(Continued here.)
Sensing Shift in Bush Policy, Another Hawk Leaves
By DAVID E. SANGER
New York Times
WASHINGTON, March 20 — Among the hawks in the Bush administration, Robert Joseph long occupied a special perch.
As the architect of much of the administration’s strategy for countering nuclear proliferation, he helped engineer the decision to exit the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, worked secretly to squeeze Libya to give up its nuclear weapons program, and created a loose consortium of nations, now numbering more than 80, committed to intercepting illicit weapons at sea, in the air or on land.
But last month Mr. Joseph quietly left the State Department, where he was under secretary for arms control and international security, telling colleagues that, as a matter of principle, he simply could not abide the new agreement with North Korea that the Bush administration struck in February.
Mr. Joseph has declined to talk publicly about why he left, but he told colleagues that he thought the deal would prolong the survival of a North Korean government he has publicly called “criminal” and “morally abhorrent” while failing to require it to give up the weapons it has already produced. In an interview, Mr. Joseph made clear that he “does not support the policy” that President Bush has now embraced.
“The approach I would have endorsed was to continue to put pressure on the regime,” Mr. Joseph added.
(Continued here.)
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2 Comments:
Sanger gives Joseph a lot of credit for the Libya decision to stop its nuclear program, but Ron Suskind in his book The One Precent Doctrine lays the groundwork for this change back to the Clinton Administration … more or less implying that Bush was just the sitting President when the final negotiations concluded.
When Joseph came into the State Department, he seemed to embrace the idea of the six party talks with North Korea as well as the EU-3 efforts with Iran. But did he find that getting concesses with “our team players” more challenging than SALT or START when it was the US –vs- Russia ? In some ways, Joseph may have been happier if he were part of a Kerry Administration that would have also had direct negotiations with Korea. Heck, Bush and Kerry agreed that the preeminent threat that the US faces as a nation is a terrorist with a nuclear weapon … Kerry probably would have addressed the Korea (and Iran) issue much earlier than Bush.
Although John Bolton is referenced in the article that he resigned rather that confront the Senate for another confirmation battle, should it be questioned as to whether Bolton’s presence delayed the eventual negotiations with Korea? Essentially, isn’t the deal that Bush accepted, the same as what could have been agreed to much earlier. Bolton should never have been sent to the UN … and if Coleman would have listened to Hagel, Chaffee and Voinovich, Bolton would have been rejected in the Foreign Relations Committee. Heck, I have a hunch that if Coleman’s election was in 2006, he may have been less a vocal Bush-hack.
I wonder what Joseph thinks of Sanger’s NY Times March 1st piece :
US intelligence officials publicly question conclusions about progress of North Korea's pursuit of nuclear device using uranium; disclosure raises questions about Bush administration's decision to confront North Korea in 2002; disclosure also raises broader questions about ability of intelligence agencies to discern precise status of foreign weapons programs; analysts agree that Pakistan sold North Korea centrifuges to convert uranium gas into enriched uranium, but experts now say that they have doubts about how much progress uranium enrichment program has actually made; some officials suggest that timing of disclosure could be linked to North Korea's recent agreement to reopen its doors to international arms inspectors.
This is not something that Joseph shouldn’t have questioned himself as after all at a Press Conference on August 3, 2005, he was asked :
QUESTION: Right. Under Secretary Joseph, several months ago, I think it was the presidential panel assessing intelligence committees in Iraq, also made a statement that we know disturbingly little about the nuclear goings on, nuclear plans of rogue states and others. Do you think that still exists? Do you think it's been an improvement and how is this kind of organization going to address that particular problem?
UNDER SECRETARY JOSEPH: Well, I think the findings of the report speak for themselves. And clearly, the finding was disturbing in terms of what we don't know about a number of these programs. We are, of course, as a government working to improve our collection capabilities and our analytical capabilities and that will continue.
In terms of being a consumer of intelligence, the various offices that I have described will work closely with, you know, with our partners in the intelligence community to fashion the best policies and the most effective counters, given what we know.
Bush may be better served with both Bolton and Joseph gone.
The discussion of Neocons moving on, but not changing their viewpoint, John Bolton is in the news again.
A BBC radio documentary, The Summer War in Lebanon, to be broadcast in April has an interview with Bolton in which he states he was "damned proud of what we did" to prevent an early ceasefire.
So even with the hindsight and since the Lebanon issue is worse today than it was last summer, Bolton still seems to be advocating that military action is the only action.
Here is the story :
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6479377.stm
The Senate should have never allowed Bush to misinterpret the Constitution to appoint Bolton. And sadly, this is March, and the Senate still has not confirmed Zalmay Khalilzad as Bolton's replacement. Khalizad has a better appreciation of the situation in the region and may be able to nudge Rice/Bush that we need bilateral talks with Syria. Syria holds the key.
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