Carter Security Chief: Clinton, Not Bush, To Blame for Korean Nukes
Carter administration National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski said Sunday that the Clinton administration deserved the lion's share of the blame for the nuclear crisis in North Korea because it relied on a policy of "accommodation" that led Pyongyang to think it could "have its cake and eat it, too."
Asked by CNN "Late Edition" host Wolf Blitzer if President Bush's hard line toward North Korea had caused the crisis by pushing Pyongyang "into a corner," Brzezinski instead fingered Bush's predecessor.
"I think the issue is big enough for the blame to be shared rather widely," he told Blitzer. "It seems to me that perhaps earlier in the '90s, the Democratic administration, President Clinton's administration, was somewhat too eager to accommodate, reflecting, in part, political changes in South Korea which pointed in the direction of accommodation - the so-called sunshine policy."
Brzezinski continued:
"And that may have given the North Koreans the impression that they can have their cake and eat it too. Namely, get some benefits of accommodation while pursuing this surreptitious nuclear program, which is a serious program."
While the Carter security chief noted that "lately the Bush administration has swung to the other extreme" on North Korea, he seemed to endorse the president's policy of preemptive action.
"We ought to be following a policy that the president articulated on Sept. 12 at the U.N. when speaking of Iraq," Brzezinski told CNN. "Namely, that we are willing to use force if it's a last resort and if the threat is imminent, which is neither the case in North Korea yet or Iraq. But it could be." |
