Around the World

Getting cozy with Sarkozy

On his first official visit to Washington as President, France's Nicolas Sarkozy assured a joint session of Congress today that France is "the friend of the United States." While we've heard those words before from French Presidents, including from Mr. Sarkozy's immediate predecessor, Jacques Chirac, it now seems that under Sarkozy France intends to be a friend both in word and deed. This is welcome news.

Relations between France and the United States have been icy in recent years. Under President Chirac, it often seemed that French foreign policy was almost entirely devoted to thwarting the policies of the United States. The surprising thing is that the fruits of this misguided effort to divide the West weren't even more disastrous than they were - for France, the United States, and the Western alliance.

Like it or not, the U.S. brings to bear the greatest political, military, and economic power the world has ever known. As such, the U.S. naturally occupies a very prominent position of leadership among other Western and Western-oriented nations. It's a position of great responsibility, and the old maxim "it's lonely at the top" is often all too true. That's been the case since the end of World War II, and it will continue to be the case for the forseeable future. To their great credit, the French have elected a leader who understands that.

Sarkozy said yesterday, "I come to Washington to bear a very simple message, a message that I bear on behalf of all Frenchmen. I want to reconquer the heart of America." I wish him luck. And in the interest of diplomacy, I'll even refrain from making the obvious joke about Frenchmen and conquest.

U.S. begins dismantling North Korea's nuclear facilities

Earlier this year, the six-party talks between the United States, North Korea, China, South Korea, Japan, and Russia resulted in an agreement to dismantle the North Korean nuclear weapons program. At the time the agreement was announced, many were more skeptical than hopeful, given North Korea's reputation for retrenching on its promises. If the Twentieth Century taught us anything, it was that megolomaniacs with a God-complex can't be trusted.

Ronald Reagan's repeated message to the Soviets in arms control negotiations was, "trust, but verify." In the case of the latest North Korean nuclear agreement, the trust part has always seemed to me at least moderately tenable, since it was signed by all six of the most-interested parties - the United States, North Korea, and North Korea's neighbors. It therefore lacks the fatal flaw that doomed the "Agreed Framework" negotiated by the Clinton administration.

It's the verification part that was most problematic. This week, though, hope trumped skepticism. From yesterday's AP report (via the New York Times):

The State Department said Monday that a team of American experts had arrived at North Korea’s sole functioning nuclear reactor and begun the work of disabling the facilities.

A State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, told reporters that the disabling of the nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, north of the capital, Pyongyang, “is a positive first step in this process, and we certainly hope to see it continue.”

He had no details about what specific steps the team was taking.

North Korea shut down Yongbyon in July and promised to disable it by year’s end in exchange for energy aid after talks with the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia.

Note that it is American experts that are doing the dismantling - not Hans Blix, not an international team of U.N. inspectors, but Americans. Only time will tell, but at the moment this seems to be a very big deal.

(Even without nukes, North Korea will still pose a great threat to its neighbors, as this New York Times piece indicates.)

Russian parliament votes to suspend obligations of CFE Treaty

From Reuters:

Russia's parliament voted unanimously on Wednesday to suspend a key arms treaty limiting conventional forces in Europe, saying the United States and NATO were using the pact to undermine Russia's defenses.

Ignoring appeals from the United States, the Duma (lower house of parliament) approved 418-0 a law allowing Moscow to stop complying with the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, seen by the West as a cornerstone of European security. ...

Russia's top general Yuri Baluyevsky said the CFE treaty, which limits the number of heavy conventional weapons deployed and stored between the Atlantic and Russia's Ural mountains, unfairly penalized Moscow.

Vladimir Putin is signaling that the days when the West can take Russian interests for granted are over. Look for negotiations soon that involve trading off NATO's plan to base a new missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic for Russia's assistance in curtailing Iran's nuclear weapons program.