North Korea

Foreign policy is a fast-paced business. Despite the fact that at least someone in the Obama Administration is actually celebrating the art of indecision, you can save the world with snap judgments if you know what you're doing.  I know what I'm doing. 

To demonstrate I will now solve some of the biggest foreign policy problems confronting some of the world's most important newsmakers in a matter of just a few seconds each. (I will also solve a few lower-grade domestic problems as well.) If you are an important figure on the international stage, just look for your name below. Next to it will be the advice you need in a couple of quick sentences. If you are not a world leader but know one, please feel free to forward this to them.

To Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan of the Pakistani Muslim League: If you don't like the provisions of the U.S. aid package, keep it to yourself. Your complaints are precisely how we know the deal has been constructed properly. (Hint: Turn back the Americans who are offering aid and you'll end up with those who want to make all future deliveries by drone.)

To President Barack Obama: If you think that George's war (that'd be Iraq) is likely to look better than yours (Afghanistan) in five years -- and that'd be my bet right now -- then you really do need to listen to the people calling for a change in strategy.

To Manuel Zelaya: Fair or not, your five minutes are just about up...unless you choose to start dating Kate Gosselin. (And if that is Plan B, I have to say, I'd stay locked in the basement of the Brazilian Embassy, too.)

To Kim Jong-Il: You tell Wen Jiabao you want one-on-one talks with the United States to establish peaceful ties as a prelude to returning to the nuclear arms negotiating table? No problem. Two steps: First, ask for them. Second, realize Michael Jackson wrote "The Man(iac) in the Mirror" for you. As in the "how many shrinks does it take to change a lightbulb?" joke, the punchline is that it's you who've really got to want to change.

To Jon Corzine: You don't get re-elected governor of New Jersey by attacking fat people. I have a two word clue for you on this front: Tony Soprano.

To Silvio Berlusconi:  Are you the one that's tanned now or is that just a red face? The ruling by the Italian Supreme Court stripping you of immunity from prosecution just because you are Prime Minister certainly seems likely to put a hitch in your mambo Italiano. With three trials going on that involve you or your holdings, you might want to start planning your post government career. (I know your wife has some interesting ideas for what to do with you ... or parts of you.)

To Donald Tusk: As Poland's Prime Minister dealing with a corruption scandal, you have learned some important truths: gambling always produces losers (in your case, the three ministers who have been forced out of your government for corruption) and you can't beat the house (even if you try by suggesting you'll fire the anti-corruption official who blew the whistle on your cabinet) ... especially if the house is run by the two who stole that stole the moon and you don't fit in with their plans. 

To Robert Mugabe: You say you want better ties with the U.S.? Well, you're going to need a long rope... Kim Jong-Il has a better shot at restored relations with the United States ... by a lot. Frankly, so does Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Frankly, so too does Rufus T. Firefly. Dictator, purge thyself.

To David Letterman: Ok, so far there's no rumors of foreign affairs in this story. But my advice to you is: continue doing just what you're doing. The openness is working...on the ratings...and on what's left of your image.  Silvio, you randy slimebag you, pay attention. Old men apparently can screw around with younger women if they are charmingly self-deprecating about it, not political leaders and not you. 

To Mazen Abdul Jawad:  You may have been condemned to 1,000 lashes in Saudi Arabia for discussing your (kinda gross) sex life on a tv talk show.   Here in America (see above), the same thing would actually get you your own talk show.  Time to consider relocating...almost anyplace else.  And speaking of Saudi outrages...

To Mohammed S. Al Sabban: If, as head of the Saudi delegation to the global climate talks, you are actually as reported going around saying if measures are taken to reduce world dependency on oil that the planet should offer aid to Saudi Arabia ... then get used to the idea that you are going to replace the woman who buried her husband in a rented suit as the living embodiment of laughable chutzpah.

To David Axelrod: Stay out of camera shot in photos about major foreign policy decisions. You're the president's right hand guy. He needs you: You have the "mind-meld" thing going, offer invaluable advice and by all reports are actually a good guy. Which is why what neither the president nor you need are the uncharitable whispers that you are out-Roving Rove in terms of day-to-day influence over administration operations. (Oh and to Karl Rove, re: your WSJ article that the GOP is winning the health care debate: There's a reason you guys are out. Wrong again. See the CBO report. The Obama-Baucus bill is getting closer and closer to being a done deal.)

AFP/Getty Images

One message that seems to have been sent by the Obama administration thus far: If you challenge us, we will reward you. If you abuse us, we will reward you a lot. But don't think we're going soft. Beware: If you are a friend or a needed ally, we will punish you. (Or is that three messages?)

It is of course, my hope that this is all inadvertent or better yet, part of some grand plan that can't be understood without the proper security clearances. Or maybe it is just "learning curve behavior." But in any case, the facts to date are unsettling.

Russia undercuts our efforts to rein in Iran's nuclear program. Our response: dismantle the missile shield we had contemplated for Eastern Europe.

Hamid Karzai diddles the elections, abuses his people, and is openly corrupt. Our response: let's discuss how many more troops we want to send in to Afghanistan to help strengthen his power base and while we're at it, let's spend billions on doing work building his nation.

Pakistan limits our ability to go after the Taliban and al Qaeda within their borders, limits our ability to gain credit for aid flows to the country while promoting the interests of radical muslim donors and we open the spigots wider.

North Korea pushes forward with weapons programs and rattles its saber regularly and we seek new channels to discuss ways we can deepen our relationship after each calculated taunt.

Myanmar extends the prison term of Aung San Suu Kyi on trumped up charges and we send a high level emissary.

Iran crushes legitimate opposition, the regime steals and election, it lies for decades about its nuclear program, it strengthens its military capability and calls for destruction of Israel and we announce further talks despite their insistence none of the issues most important for us to discuss are open to discussion. Push us harder through arms collaboration with Russia and we remove the threat of that missile defense.

Meanwhile, our one dependable ally in the Middle East, Israel, faces an unprecedented squeeze, our most dependable ally on Venezuela's border, Colombia, can't get even a modest trade deal finalized, the Poles and the Czechs get the rug pulled out from under them, and so on. We need China more than ever to help with Iran after Russia has gone on the record as seeking a divergent outcome ... not to mention needing movement from them on issues like climate and global economic cooperation ... and what do we do? Slap them with unnecessary, hard-to-defend duties on imported tires.

It's the same here at home. No one fears crossing the Obama administration because the two most likely outcomes are either no retaliation or rewards. (Ask Senator Grassley, who gets concessions by the boatload but still refuses to play along, to name just one.)

I'm just sayin'...

Engagement is a worthy goal. The missile shield was probably of dubious value at best (especially when we started to define it in terms of our own sham cover story that it was all about Iran and not about the real longer term threat, Russia). Defeating the Taliban and al Qaeda and seeking greater stability in Pakistan or Afghanistan ... or Israel and neighboring regions. Indeed, I am a pretty enthusiastic supporter of what I understand the outlines and objectives of the Obama administration's foreign policy to be.

But after a while, independent or uncoordinated actions become patterns and patterns send messages. Are we so isolated from Russia today that we have pushed from memory Pavlov and all that smart stuff he and his dog taught us about conditioned response? Even if that's the case, I thought this team was close to Oprah. Couldn't she or her house shrink Dr. Phil point out what happens when abusive behavior is rewarded?

I know it's still early in the administration. And I remain resolutely hopeful. But as a general rule, I take it as a warning sign when Dr. Phil is in any position to offer useful insights regarding U.S. foreign policy. Worse still, we know what happens to people who fail to heed his advice. They end up on the Maury show. That's no place for a U.S. foreign policy ... all toothless and disoriented, throwing chairs and being accused of fathering outcomes we don't want any part of.

Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

Despite a growing desire on my part to avoid the cage-match side of blogging, it is hard not to respond to Christian Brose's post "What is David Rothkopf smoking?" Brose seems to have, in President Obama's words, become all "wee-wee'd up" over my article in Sunday's Washington Post. I respond, of course, as a public service because so much of what he said provides a useful insight into how far we have come since the days of the Bush administration and how desperate Bush apologists are to find a way to suggest that their man and the policies they promoted were not actually the nadir of American foreign policy.

I should note however, that I also do this reluctantly because I think Brose is a pretty good writer and a fairly thoughtful guy. Still, when someone suggests that I have been a member of "the foreign policy hoi-polloi that went into intellectual hibernation in 2004 and only awoke this January" I figure, it's probably OK to offer a few words on behalf of my views. (Although it does explain the acorn residue I found in my cheeks.) 

I will ignore for a moment the fact that Brose clearly is willing to spot the world the first term of the Bush administration as indefensible and focus on his core notion that somehow the years Condi was at State were almost indistinguishable in intent, concept and execution from what we have seen to date from the Obama team. It should be noted that coincidentally Brose was a speech-writer at State during the Bush administration.

Let's take his points one at a time:

• Brose opens with a snarky summary of my article. The thrust is: Obama foreign policy is not revolutionary and I am kissing the asses of the Obama administration. I refer folks back to the past eight months of daily blogging as evidence that I have no inclination to butter up the new team and regularly do not. He does not note that he spends the entire article kissing the wholly discredited asses of his former employers.

• He then goes on to wonder aloud how anyone who "thinks and writes about foreign policy for a living" could think Clinton or Obama are transforming U.S. foreign policy. I have to admit, whatever the flaws in their individual policies, I find it hard to see how anyone could think they are not. Does he really think these folks just picked up where George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice and Dick Cheney left off? In Iraq? In Afghanistan and Pakistan? With their approach to engagement? With their commitment to multilateralism? With their approach to Guantanamo or torture? With their outreach to the Muslim world? With their commitment to reverse nuclear weapons proliferation? I could go on ... but will just take his main points in succession to continue in this vein.

• Brose lists Bush administration development "advancements" to suggest that they effectively covered the waterfront when it comes to reforming the development process. While Bush actually did some good here (and I didn't argue he didn't), that doesn't mean the work is done or that what the Clinton team is doing at State is not promising. The Obama team inherited an aid apparatus that was still deeply dysfunctional, underfunded and focused on missions that were not core. The QDDR process I mention in the article represents a commitment to strategic reevaluation that recognizes the fluid nature of international affairs today and seeks to institutionalize change in much the same way that the QDR does at DoD. Further, there is a massive amount of work that needs to be done if development policy is to be rendered effective in the current environment ... creating the ability, for example, to effectively do post-conflict reconstruction that so flummoxed the Bush administration for so long comes to mind, as does a civilian-side Goldwater-Nichols and other ideas that are currently being reviewed within State and the NSC process.

• His next paragraph argues that since the Bush administration participated in many multilateral forums that is the same thing as the Obama administration's commitment to the centrality of new partnerships. Can he actually believe that the Bush administration was a champion of multilateralism? By this same theory all people who go to church are virtuous and I, who talk a very good diet game, am actually 20 pounds lighter than reported this morning by the scale. Admittedly, there was a line in my article that was cut due to space considerations that I wish had been left in which said that while many of the current policies have roots in the past, what is happening now is very different because of the way it is being approached, the centrality it is being given, the degree of involvement of top officials, etc. Nothing illustrates this as much for me as the role emerging powers are being given. First, this is not a "Bush-era" inheritance. I know. Because I actually helped develop and run the first inter-agency process focused on U.S.-Emerging Markets relations during the Clinton years. Second, he cites a four-year-old Condi speech in which she mouths words he may have written about partners in the emerging world but seriously, wasn't he paying attention? At the time she did it, the perception that the U.S. was arrogantly acting apart from the rest of the world was near its apotheosis. The core concepts of Bush era foreign policy were of "us and them" and of our ability and willingness to effectively act alone or within sham coalitions to advance our interests. The core concept of the Obama administration is that just won't work anymore and that effective partnerships with a core group that includes new allies are the sine qua non of international progress.

• He then goes on to say that the administration has too little to show for its efforts. He minimizes restoring American relations with the world as if that weren't central to foreign policy. He then argues that this is not so meaningful because "cooperation has not always followed." Seriously? Will the Obama-Clinton restoration of America's relations with the world only be complete if everyone in the world cooperates with us always? This reveals his core misunderstanding of the nature of the kind of partnerships on which the Obama-Clinton team is seeking to build U.S. foreign policy. Also, in terms of not having much to show for their efforts, that's just ridiculous. Only seven months into their efforts U.S. policy has changed dramatically in Iraq and in AfPak, the administration has become deeply involved in the Arab-Israeli issue (which took the Bush administration about 7 years to discover), it has helped engineer an international response to the financial crisis, it has restored America's damaged reputation worldwide, the president's Prague and Cairo speeches represented dramatic breaks with the Bush past and set U.S. policies with the Muslim world and re: elimination of nuclear weapons in a new direction, and so on. It's just the beginning ... but it is a beginning very unlike the past eight years.

• Further his one-sided assessments of issues worldwide is full of inaccuracies. He says others won't help with Guantanamo but fails to note the benefits accruing to us from shutting it down. He says India and China don't share enthusiasm for a climate deal while failing to acknowledge that we are in a global negotiation, that the United States is now deeply involved as an advocate for progress for the first time or to note the differences in position between India and China (China is much more forward leaning and inclined to a deal). He inaccurately suggests that the only thing we can agree with the Russians is to reduce the number of nukes (as if that were a small thing). He says Pakistan is dysfunctional but fails to note how much more we are currently doing to address that. He says Iran and North Korea are a still difficult while failing to acknowledge the recent progress made with the North Koreans or that engagement with Iran is a real departure (on which the jury is admittedly still out).

• He concludes with the notion that we "are still a world of nations" (simplistic and wrong ... we are a world of many actors some of the most important of which on key issues are non-state actors) and that the Obama administration has been getting "mugged" by our differences since coming into office. This suggests again a misunderstanding of the nature of international relations. Good foreign policy does not produce a problem-free world. It just minimizes threats while advancing our interests. But, it also fails to note the central point that no doubt will resonate in the mind of the rest of the planet...which is that during the Bush years, it was the United States that was mugging the world and the system of international law we had fought for a century to advance.

That's the key point about these early days of this new foreign policy team. All administrations talk about partnerships and new relationships. To my mind, this one seems to believe what it is saying and is doing something about ... and at the very least is not as transparently hypocritical about such matters as was its predecessor. That in and of itself is perhaps the transformation most of the world was most hoping for. 

PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images

As indicated late last week by the first half of my foreign policy report card, President Obama has put a first class team in place to manage his international agenda and so far they are working well together.   But what about the policies themselves?  It's early yet, of course, but it's worth asking-where have they made their mark and what kind of marks is that likely to get them.

Remaking the American Brand, Grade: A

Job one was slamming the door on the George Bush Era then locking it, boarding it up, doing a "Cask of Amontillado" brick wall on top of that, and then depositing the whole thing in Yucca Mountain for safe keeping.  Related to this was getting out there, introducing Michelle, and letting intelligence, charm and competence tell the story. My belief is most of the world wants to like America so this task was not quite as hard as some had made out (which makes Bush's alienation of the planet all that much more of an accomplishment), but Obama has shined as the new front man for the "new, improved" good old USA. 

North Korea, Grade: B

Oh, right. As if I am stupid enough to evaluate the North Korea policy in the wake of Bill Clinton's historic visit... Well, actually the outcome was easy enough to predict; Clinton wouldn't have gone if the release of the two journalists weren't a pretty sure thing. The North Koreans wouldn't have accepted him if they didn't think it was time to take a little breather (as we periodically do) from all the heavy breathing. But the long-term issues will remain. Clinton himself once said nuclear weapons were North Korea's only cash crop and so they will likely keep playing the game we're used to. Frankly, if Clinton hadn't gone, I think I would have given a D on this front because they have been toying with us on the nuclear issue and our multilateral efforts have been ineffective. Also our policy has been virtually identical to Bush's.  Or maybe I would have given the administration a "C" because I enjoyed Hillary's mudslinging with the Dear Leader a few weeks ago. It was lousy diplomacy but had a higher truth content and more comic content than such exchanges usually do. (Come to think of it, I wonder how our former president and Kim Jong Il handled the "funny lady" who looks like a "pensioner going shopping" comments at dinner tonight?  And however they handled it, if only we could have gotten a glimpse of the "Annie Hall" subtitles that would have revealed what they were really thinking.")

Iran, Grade: C+

The big plus in the current team's policy re: Iran is clearly the move toward engagement. The big negative is clearly the move toward engagement.  They cancel each other out which is why I give them a "C." Engaging with Iran is the right thing to do. This is a country with the greatest possibility of leading the Middle East toward democracy and integration with the west.  It is sophisticated, cosmopolitan and too diverse to pigeonhole just because the views of a few leaders are crazed. (We in the United States should have learned this lesson from how we wanted to be treated when W was at the helm.) But as has been said here before, engagement is a tactic -- not a policy objective. We were so eager to achieve it that we were late in condemning the unrest in the streets in Tehran. And I fear that the success or failure of engagement in Iran will be seen as so central to the President's ultimate foreign policy grade that we may be too accepting of the promises of a regime with almost two decades of history of breaking promises. I give the plus because I think Hillary Clinton leads a group of tough-minded policymakers in the administration on this issue and I think there is still a decent chance we may get the best of both worlds: engagement and the ability to respect ourselves the next morning. 

Israel and Palestinian Territories, Grade: B

As discussed here earlier, we may be on the verge of a historically bad patch in the U.S.-Israel relationship. The United States feels the need to get tough just as an Israeli administration comes in that is inclined to defend the indefensible (which is the expansion of settlements). But frankly, only through such toughness will the United States be able to be an effective intermediary in defusing this chronic crisis.

Also: the administration has been hugely more engaged on this front than their predecessors... which is a big plus. But we have to ask: when push comes to shove, will the administration be as tough with the Palestinians as will be necessary? Will a perhaps too soft stance on Iran create a deeper rift with an Israel with legitimate security concerns regarding a nuclear Iran? My guess is we will make some progress on this front in the next three years...more than at any time since the Clinton days. But now that we have established that we recognized what needed to be changed...we need to prove that we recognize what also needs to be preserved in our relationship with Israel. 

Afghanistan and Pakistan, Grade: D

This is the "Be Careful What You Wish For, War." The administration framed this as the good war during the campaign and now it has become theirs. This is where their military management skills will be tested. This is where their geopolitical mastery will be tested. And, I believe, this is where they will start to fail those tests ... not because they won't be working the issues as hard as possible or putting their best people on the problem. Rather it is because ancient ethnic divisions, geography, religious politics and history make victory ... victory of any sort ... almost impossible. The best we can hope for is to get some bad guys and get out, hand the problems over to locals and forge a partnership with the other great powers in the region, notably India and China to contain the spillage from a place that is likely to be an open wound on the world for decades to come.

Iraq, Grade: B-

Look, Obama was elected to get us out of here and that's what he's doing.  Having said that, watch closely as to what happens as we leave. My sense is a combination of government incompetence and corruption and the intractability of local problems is likely to produce festering unrest that keeps 50,000 or so U.S. troops in this country for...well, maybe not John McCain's 100 years...but a long time. (Which was the point McCain was inartfully trying to make, I think.) And if you want to start a betting pool, I say the over-under on an independent Kurdistan is 2020 and I'll take the under. 

BRICs-Russia: C, China: A-, India: A-, Brazil: B-

The Obama team has made a great contribution by recognizing the rightful place of these emerging powers within whatever organization ultimately succeeds the G8. But the policies with each country have been a mixed bag. The most important of the relationships by far is with China...it's the most important bilateral relationship in the world by far.  Obama has put in place a terrific ambassador, early meetings have gone pretty well and most importantly, the clear message has been sent about the centrality of the relationship. If the Chinese are beating us up a bit on economics well, turn about is fair play...and an important dimension of a relationship among equals. While the Indians gave Hillary a hard time on climate, her trip and the up-coming meeting in Washington with PM Singh suggest this relationship too is entering a new era. The U.S.-India relationship has never been more vital to us or to them ... that's a good thing. So far the relationship with the Russians has left everyone a little uneasy. I happen to think that's roughly how we should feel about the Russians, but it is hard to say the relationship is in especially good shape and we are cutting them a little too much slack. (Did you notice the Russian-Iranian naval exercises a few days ago?)  Lula and Obama have a natural affinity and we are also sending a great ambassador to Brazil but the cave to Sen. Grassley on the ethanol tariff takes away something the Brazilians wanted a lot. So, the future of that relationship will really depend on what the U.S. does to help Brazil claim a larger role on the international stage.

Europe, Grade: B

The Euros started out loving Barack. But the administration dragged its feet on European proposals for major global regulatory reform in finance and the Euros dragged their feet on upgrading their help for the United States in AfPak. It's going to get worse if the "special relationship" we have with the U.K. ... which has been crucial in managing our other relationships in the region ... is damaged because, as seems likely, the next British PM is a guy, David Cameron, who the Obama team is going to have a tough time getting along with. It's going to get worse still if our budget constraints start having us cut back further on our international military activities and more pressure will be applied to Europe to step up. But so far so good on this front and it seems likely that given strong working relationships at the highest level with France and Germany, things should be fine. (Although it's quite a thought: the U.S. could be closer to Sarkozy's France than to Cameron's U.K.)

Latin America, Grade: C

Face it, the U.S. only cares about Latin America when it has to. So far, Obama and company have given Mexico good attention and although the security situation in that country remains unsettled and that could lead to a likely resurgence of a PRI that may be harder for Obama to deal with, it is hard to imagine any U.S. administration handling the relationship better.  There has been slight movement on Cuba. I mark the administration down a whole grade on this point since there should have been major movement on Cuba-the removal of a policy that is so bad I really hate to speak its name.  Sin embargo, even worse are likely to be the consequences of our hesitant policy toward Hugo Chavez. Read the recent NY Times article on what Venezuela has been doing with the FARC in Colombia. Chavez may be a tinpot crackpot but he is working to undermine democracies in the region like Colombia ... and of course, Venezuela ... even as he continues to proclaim his democratic legitimacy. This is a place where the clown show in Trinidad is going to look worse and worse as engagement with this truly bad actor is quickly ruled out.

Africa, Grade: B

So far the administration has made the case that it wants to do more for this relationship. Now, of course, it actually has to do more. Thus far, the issues of the region have gotten precious little bandwidth and the failure to put in place someone to run U.S. A.I.D. hasn't help. So...good message but the proof is in the pudding. (Also, the over-under on the next time we send U.S. troops to Africa is 2015. I'll take the under. In other words: a dangerous policy mistake to watch is under-estimating the geopolitical importance of Africa going forward.)

Multilateralism, Grade: C

High marks are earned for starting to mothball the G8 in favor of the G20.  Low marks for sluggish and limited trade policy, likelihood of a punt in Copenhagen, very limited results at most summits, failing NPT and no good successor in sight, and not very effective use of the UN to date.  (Though that could change I do have a lot of faith in Susan Rice to change it.)

So, there you are. Ruminate. Admire. Cast aspersions. I can take it. Where I am right now Washington seems far far away and I am finding new clarity. (Or possibly suffering from oxygen deprivation.)

Middle: Joe Raedle/Getty Images; Top Right, clockwise: Joe Raedle/Getty Images, Mark Wilson/Getty Images, JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images, KNS/AFP/Getty Images, David Silverman/Getty Images, ALI AL-SAADI/AFP/Getty Images

Kudos to Secretary Clinton who, having returned to the spotlight with a vengeance (she is finally getting an hour on "Meet the Press" this Sunday all to herself), has also restored some life to the war of words between the United States and North Korea. After all, if one is going to have a war of words, by all means use sharp, colorful words and, if possible, demeaning imagery. Muss up the other guy's hair (although admittedly when dealing with Kim Jong Il that's almost impossible to do). Make him feel small (which, in contrast, is fairly easy to do with Kim). Make it interesting to read about in the press. Avoid the constant quest for convoluted blandness that makes U.N. broadsides at North Korea so much more effective than serotonin as a sleep aid.

America's feisty secretary of state launched the current battle when she suggested that her experience as a mother had prepared her to deal with the likes of the North Koreans, recommending that they be ignored like "small children or unruly teenagers." While you've got to wonder how Chelsea felt, being compared to the deranged nuke-wielding ruler of a nation of zombie-slaves, her comments obviously struck a nerve with the Dear Leader.

No doubt drawing on his extensive training in rhetoric and stand-up comedy at the University of Malta (training ground for all of Malta's best comics), Kim fired back with the tell-tale wit that once had him referred to as "the anti-factionalist Oscar Wilde of Baekdu Mountain" until someone discovered who Oscar Wilde was and the guy who invented the nickname was dropped out of a Russian helicopter into the Amnok River. (Wilde, meanwhile, might have called North Korean official efforts at humor "the unspeakable in pursuit of the unattainable.")

The North Korean riposte to Clinton's barb was "We cannot but regard Mrs. Clinton as a funny lady as she likes to utter such rhetoric, unaware of the elementary etiquette in the international community. Sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping." This is certainly one of the best nasty communiqués in recent history and may, quite possibly be the apotheosis of North Korean literature. The "funny lady" insult shows boldness and a real understanding of what ultimately ruined Barbra Streisand's career. (Funny Girl good, Funny Lady not so much.) But the "primary schoolgirl"--"pensioner going shopping" thing was so evocative. Yikes. "Primary schoolgirl" is practically a compliment (at least it probably is in the mind of yet another Clinton) but "pensioner going shopping?!" It's so catty that Kim Jong Il should immediately be made the star of "The Real Housewives of Pyongyang" or at least be forced to add the full archive of past episodes of "The View" to his extensive video collection.

From what deep void within does such vitriol flow? Well, it is hinted at in the only major movie to effectively depict the real Kim Jong Il, a movie so accurate when it comes to his character that it would easily have won the Academy Award for Best Documentary were it not for the fact that all the major characters in the movie were, in fact, played by puppets. That movie, now shown as a training film at the East Asian Bureau in the State Department, is of course, Team America: World Police. In it, this is how Kim unburdens himself, describing the emptiness that ultimately had him lashing out at Hillary as though he were Maureen Dowd back in the days when the mere mention of a Clinton would have her howling at the moon.

Kim Jong Il:

I'm so Ronery / So ronery / So ronery and sadry arone / There's no one / Just me onry / Sitting on my rittle throne / I work rearry hard and make up get prans / but, nobody listens, no one understands / Seems rike no one takes me serirousry / And so, I'm ronery / A rittle ronery / Poor rittle me / There's no one I can rerate to / Feewr rike a biwd in a cage / It's kinda siwry / but, not reawry / because, it's fiwring my body with rage / I'm the smartest, most crever, most physicawry fit / but, nobody erse seems to rearrize it / When I can the worrd maybe they'rr notice me / And untiwr then, I'wr be ronery / Yeaaaaah, a rittle ronery / Poor rittle me...

And then, of course, at a different point in a movie full of high points, he reveals the source of his frustration, in words that speak to everyone, especially most of the bloggers I know...

Kim Jong Ill:

Why is everyone so fucking stupid? Why can't more people be interrigent, like me?

INDRANIL MUKHERJEE/AFP/Getty Images

Yesterday at lunch I ran into a very senior official who is deeply involved in the negotiations with Honduras. He said, "It is a very strange situation. Here you have on one side officials from Honduras and on the other side you have the United States, Hillary Clinton, Brazil, Michelle Bachelet, the rest of the world. They seem to be enjoying it ... they have never had so much attention."

And so the government of Honduras learns the first lesson of weak-state diplomacy as taught by the Sun Tzu of diplomatic tantrums, Kim Jong-Il: the more big powers you can irritate, the better off you are. They almost never manage to apply real pressure and more importantly, wherever they go, the cameras go. If North Korea were a poor Stalinist agricultural enclave on the northern bit of the Korean peninsula that didn't have nuclear weapons they would be getting roughly the publicity of...well, Cameroon, which is a near neighbor on the CIA GDP chart. (Some other neighbors on that chart like Cyprus and Yemen have also managed to ratchet up the attention they get by being festering sores on the political map.)

Whatever the case, the diplomat advised the Hondurans not get too used to the limelight, that their 15 minutes were almost up. What's the matter with these guys? A call to Pyongyang or A.Q. Khan and they could become a first tier nuisance to the world and enjoy all the rights and privileges thereto appertaining.

MAYELA LOPEZ/AFP/Getty Images

My mother would not approve. The bane of my childhood...which was essentially the story of Alexander Portnoy playing softball with Beaver Cleaver and Richie Cunningham in the land of "The Ice Storm"...was her insistence on a thank you note for every occasion. Get an embarrassing set of pajamas from Grandma? Immediately drop everything and send a thank you note. Get $10 from Uncle Max that could have been used to purchase a perfectly wonderful Revell model P-51 Mustang but which your parents hijack and use to buy a new pair of shoes from Tom McCann? Too bad, there will be no staying up late to watch "My Mother the Car" if you don't write a thank you note. Orthodontist slit your gums while installing a torture contraption in your mouth? Probably ought to send a thank you note, just in case.

There was a valuable lesson in this (for which, ironically, I have yet to send my mother a thank you note.) Gratitude makes a difference. Without it, the beneficence dries up and the giver no longer feels so good about giving and your brother and sister end up getting the better presents. (Or the orthodontist develops a grudge against you which is a very bad thing.)

I think it's time to send my mother to Pakistan. And then to Afghanistan. And then to Baghdad. And then perhaps on to a few other choice spots from Honduras to North Korea. This hardly seems like a reward for an exemplary life, but she could teach these folks a lesson or two about gratitude. And then, when she is done with the tour ... and she develops her own perspectives on just how little our efforts at generating gratitude in these places are actually benefitting the United States ... perhaps she ought to come back here and provide a lesson or two for the administration and for some folks on the Hill, perhaps starting with Senator Kerry. Because not only is the United States suffering from something that appears to be much like a global gratitude deficit...it may well be that the problem is with our expectations and our mechanisms for manifesting our (not so selfless) generosity to the less fortunate (or strategically significant) worldwide.

A prime illustration of the problems we face comes in the form of today's New York Times story "In Refugee Aid, Pakistan's War Has a New Front" by Jane Perlex and Pir Zubair Shah. The article describes how the United States is losing the bidding war for the hearts and minds of Pakistanis and how Islamists are edging us out. The authors observe: 

Although the United States is the largest contributor to a United Nations relief effort, Pakistani authorities have refused to allow American officials or planes to deliver the aid in camps for displaced people. The Pakistanis do not want to be associated with their unpopular ally.

At the same time, the article goes on to describe how hard-line givers from the Muslim world are using their donations to effectively promote anti-U.S. and anti-Western views. Meanwhile it notes, even American NGOs are saying we shouldn't advertise the U.S. origins of aid shipments because it is likely to inflame hostility. Seems to me like a lose-lose proposition for us there. I mean, I understand the humanitarian rationale behind giving for the sake of giving but really, isn't the purpose of government aid to advance a government objective? Isn't it clear that's precisely what we are not successfully doing in Pakistan?

But the Pakistani government and the Pakistani people are not the only ones who don't seem to appreciate our aid (or who are happy to take it but would like to continue hating us just the same). In Afghanistan, the Karzai administration would not exist without the United States. Is it showing its gratitude by combating the corruption via which our aid is wasted? Is it showing it by making even the slightest effort to embrace the most fundamental universal values of respect for groups like women or journalists? Read the reports out of Kabul. They just don't seem to appreciate all we have done for them.

Neither, it seems does the al-Maliki government in Baghdad. Now, I can see plenty of reasons why the Iraqi people would be pissed off at America. The illegal invasion of their country, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of their people and the devastation of their economy come to mind. But I'm not talking about the Iraqi people here. I'm talking about a government that knows full well that even after the pullback of U.S. troops from the cities, it depends on the continuing presence of U.S. forces in the country to ensure national stability and its grip on power. Couldn't they have toned down the celebrations of "liberation" from the Americans just a trifle to reflect the fact that the United States is continuing to invest so much in their ability to hold on to power?

We spent much training the Honduran military that conducted that country's coup earlier this week. We have pumped serious aid money into North Korea to combat famine. We give the Egyptians, the Palestinians, and the Israelis plenty of cash and there seems to be a competition among them to see who can stall our objectives in the region most effectively or creatively.

Now, I realize we don't need to give aid money to people whose situations are stable. Aid tends to go to places where there are myriad challenges. But something is clearly not working here. The reflexive notion that we should write checks because it will generate goodwill seems not to be working. Clearly part of the problem here is with our expectations. And part of the problem here is with our history and perhaps we need to reconcile ourselves to unappreciated generosity for a while as a way of offsetting years of alienating people worldwide. But clearly another part of it is that we are a little ginger in our communications with our allies on these points...at the very least the governments who depend on us for survival ought to be nudged into a more constructive message with all due care to nuance the message to take into account local political realities.

Finally, the U.S. government aid apparatus remains one of its most dysfunctional. Early in the Obama transition there was talk of spinning out U.S. AID and related agencies into a Department of Development and Aid. I am generally anti-adding new departments to the government. But this was a pretty good idea. Economic peace-keeping and nation-building have been among our prime missions internationally over the past several decades whether we like it or not. But because we don't like it we have resisted building the kind of inter-disciplinary capacity to do it right...to recognize that provision of aid in post-conflict or conflict situations has completely different requirements (mostly political) than it does in development situations and that we need to more effectively blend pacification and economic missions. We need a civilian side Goldwater-Nichols to promote better collaboration and coordination among economic and political agencies in the fulfillment of this mission and better coordination with the military which still reluctantly does much of the heavy lifting in this area.

And beyond what we need, the world needs my mother. This is true on many levels. But in this instance it is because those who depend on our aid need to realize that regardless of who is president in Washington, all politics and history aside, the financial reality is that it is going to become harder and harder for the United States to continue providing aid as we have in the past and that average Americans (and even above-average Americans) are going to be soon looking even more energetically than in the past for excuses to shut the spigots. And that's saying something because aid has always been really unpopular in the United States, it's one of the reasons we give less as a percentage of GDP than most developed countries. Absent the thank you notes (which could be a nice card or possibly just making an effort to help the United States achieve our goals) the gratitude deficit could quickly translate into an aid deficit for those who are accustomed to receiving.

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I'm one of those guys that the conspiracy theorists love to hate.

I not only believe that we need stronger global governance mechanisms, I believe that the reinvention of our global governance system is one of the great shared missions of the world for the century ahead. Whether it is strengthening institutions that regulate trade or climate, finance or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, or whether it is creating multilateral enforcement mechanisms with real teeth, the international system of nation states and very weak multilateral mechanisms we currently have is showing its age and is simply not up to satisfying the obligations of the social contract in the global era. In the eyes of the conspiracy maniacs ... weakened by too much time staring at anti-Bilderberg, anti-Davos, anti-World Jewish Conspiracy Web sites ... this makes me a world government guy and a threat to the natural order. (Which apparently is manifested in a libertarian fantasy land of white guys living in shacks and RVs far from the influence of any cultural tradition but their own. The notion of one nation under Toby Keith seems a little dubious to me, but then again, most of these guys think people like me would best serve as hood ornaments.)

Having said that, watching the UN continue its kabuki theater concerning North Korea makes me want to shut the place down, convert it to condos and remit the funds to the former member states. Even in a down New York real estate market it is almost certain to be a better return on investment for the dollars poured into that white elephant on the East River than "outcomes" like the proposed sanctions on Pyongyang. This is particularly tragic since containing and ultimately eliminating the threats posed by states like North Korea and other proliferators seems to me a vital role for the UN or at least for some international mechanism. But you can't stand up to the bad guy without a spine and the UN has been an invertebrate by design since it first crawled out of San Francisco Bay in April 1945. No one wanted anything like a strong world governance structure back then and so they built a talking shop that makes most freshman philosophy seminars look like decisive drivers of global change. Basically the organization was designed along the lines of the conflict resolution sessions my daughters' elementary school used to use when students got into a fight. The combatants would be sat down in a room, asked to explain the problem, and then told to apologize and make up or else. Of course the "or else" was the equivalent of the great parental technique of counting to three, you didn't know what might happen once you got to the point of no return but you were sure it was bad. 

To my eldest daughter's credit at one point she got into a fight with a budding bitchlet from the grade ahead of her and when asked to say they were friends, she refused. She sensed that there would be no repercussions. Who knew that my adorable little cupcake and Kim Jong-Il would have that much in common.

He must be sitting there with his 26 year-old son, Kim Jong-Un, his recently anointed successor, in their badly paneled rumpus room full of tapes of old American movies playing their favorite video game (Grand Theft Plutonium) and cackling at the wimps on Manhattan Upper East Side. Seriously, I can hardly understand how in a city in which every cab driver is prepared to get all up in your grille about the most casual comment, these UN folks can manage to negotiate the basics of daily life. It takes more gumption than they have ever displayed to get a waiter to bring you a menu at most Manhattan coffee shops. (I've seen "Gossip Girl." I know how that part of town works. Blair Waldorf would have Ban Ki Moon braiding her hair and carrying her books to school within seconds of their first meeting.)

In essence, the new tough stand of the UN, orchestrated by the United States, has two parts. In the first, we essentially reiterate what we've said in the past about interdicting shipments of weapons materials. But this time, folks, we say it with feeling. There is no commitment by anyone to actually stop or inspect North Korean ships and there is no UN mechanism obligating or even sanctioning the use of force. We also plan to cut off financing options for the starving country ... except those that pertain to humanitarian or development needs. Of course, money is fungible and the government has shown a real willingness to spend on arms in the past while letting its people eat grass, so why we think this tactic won't just produce more humanitarian and development needs ... which in turn will be met ... is beyond me.

In all the articles on these developments, the usual suspects at think tanks and in the diplomatic community say all this matters because this time the Russians and the Chinese are really pissed off. Yes, maybe. But apparently not pissed off enough to actually collaborate in the production of anything that might actually change North Korean behavior. (Their approach, written on the package every North Korean bomb comes seems to have been lifted from a shampoo bottle: Threaten...negotiate/buy time for program development...win aid packages...repeat as necessary.) How was it all described by that UN expert from Stratford-on-Avon? "A lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing." (They didn't call it the Globe Theater for nothing.)

Oh yeah, by the way, I'm still in India. I'm writing this while periodically looking up to watch the small fishing boats come into the Back Bay from the Arabian Sea. Great people, great meetings, great food and yes, if you must ask, I do keep my mouth closed in the shower to avoid becoming the host to any local bacteria (with whom I have had bad experiences in the past.)

Also, for the record, on the broader point of this blog, despite my being a very big fan of this wonderful country and a big supporter of it having a much bigger role on the international stage and in America's foreign policy priorities, I don't like the nuke deal we cut with them either. I've said it before and I will say it again, the world's complacency on proliferation will produce one or more of the great tragedies of the century ahead. (As in the North Korea case, the international community has developed and seems to be sticking to a three-speed plan on proliferation these days: cooperate with proliferators, cut them a lot slack or cut them a little slack. Just in case you wanted to know what was responsible for that ticking sound you hear...)

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