POLITICS: Loosening the Screws
Fund, John H.
HEN PRESIDENT BUSH listed North Korea and Iran as charter members of the Axis of Evil back in 2002, one might have hoped for some long-overduechangeinthebizarrepolicieshe inherited from...
...The United Nations reports Iran has more than 2,000 centrifuges running, and dozens of countries have failed to divest in Iran...
...John H. Fund, The American Spectator's Politics columnist, is author of Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy (Encounter Books...
...In Pyongyang's case, the administration abandoned a successful strategy of cutting off the flow of cashtothatgangsterregime...
...Morgan told CNBC: "If there's a profit to be made in the Russian nuclear industry, we'll invest again...
...A different approach--squeezing North Korea's financial flows-mighthavehadbetterandmorepermanentresults...
...HEN PRESIDENT BUSH listed North Korea and Iran as charter members of the Axis of Evil back in 2002, one might have hoped for some long-overduechangeinthebizarrepolicieshe inherited from President Clinton...
...When it comes to Iran, the U.S...
...WhilehewasinSouthKorea,Roycemetwithseveral defectors who he says point the way toward the potential collapse of Kim's regime...
...But increasingly the U.S...
...will be able to convince India to stop such trade...
...KimJong-ilcouldn'tpay hisgeneralsafterallthepressureweputonhim,andif we'd kept it up rather than relented in order to get him back to the bargaining table we might have imploded theregime,"saysRep.EdRoyce,rankingRepublicanon the terrorism subcommittee of House Foreign Affairs, andrecentlybackfromatriptoNorthKorea...
...BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN SOMETHING can't be done...
...We're not talking about military intervention along the lines that toppled Saddam Hussein...
...When it came to $25 million in North Korean deposits that had been frozen in a Macau bank,theU.S.wentfrombeingwillingtoreturnlegitimate portions of the money to returning all the illgotten proceeds on the understanding they "will be used solely for the betterment of the North Korean people, including for humanitarian and educational purposes...
...He says the defectors are openly skeptical of the current U.S...
...When have they ever told the truth...
...It took Congress to label part of Iran's Revolutionary Guards a terrorist entity because of its role in supplying the insurgents in Iraq...
...This approach hasn't worked...
...has tightened sanctionsagainsttheIslamicregime,butuntilrecentlyithas largely deferred to the Europeans in attempting to stop the Iranian nuclear weapons program...
...His committee staff recently published a reportonhowtheNorthKoreanscounterfeitU.S.currency, with disturbing implications for everything from U.S...
...While Iran imports 40 percent of its gasoline from other countries because it lacks sufficient refining capacity, it's unlikely the U.S...
...The State Department hasn't convinced me they have an effective strategy for tightening the economicnooseonNorthKorea,whichistheirmostvulnerablepoint,"hetoldme...
...Just simple, common sense, and a commitment to continued efforts to step on their economic air hoses...
...Fat chance of that...
...TheBushadministrationistouting a new agreement with the North Koreans in which Pyongyang pledges to end all of its nuclear programs...
...Sanctionsandeconomicwarfarearetrickytools against rogue regimes...
...J O H NH . F U N D N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 7 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R 5 3 "Ifwedon'timplodetheregime, Ihavelittleconfidencetheywillcarry throughontheirpromisesto dismantletheirnuclearprogram...
...seems to be blinking when it comes to tightening the economic screws on adversaries...
...Some levers are fairly easy to apply--such as freezing North Korean bank deposits that are then used to buy illicit gyroscopes in Japan that are then used in its nuclear program...
...Until recently Citi (formerly known as Citigroup) and J.P...
...security to the future value of the dollar...
...While not every sanction or restriction makes sense, what clearly doesn't is the State Department's policy of alternately blustering whenever North Korea and Iran misbehave and then subsiding into inaction.It'stimeforPresidentBushtotakechargeof his own policy...
...Instead, the Bush administration has gone right onpayingblackmailintheformoffoodandfueltothe Stalinist regime of Pyongyang's Kim Jong-Il, while talkingatoughgameagainstIran--whichissupplying theexplosivedevicesthatarekilling70percentofU.S...
...troops in Iraq--but not doing much about it...
...Everyone knows that all hard currency entering North Korea goes to support the terror machinery that has starved and brutalized the country's 24 million people.Rep...
...That's too bad...
...North Korea has demonstrated no reason why it should be trusted, and ratcheting up the economic pressureonKimJong-Il'sfalteringregimemaybethe only diplomatic language he respects...
...and Western European companiesshouldbediscouragedfrominvesting in Russia's nuclear energy industry, so long as that country is building nuclear plants for Iran...
...Butithaspromisedsimilarcooperationinthepastonly to, like Lucy yanking the football away from Charlie Brown, renege on its commitments...
...He should work with friendly French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to cut off European export credit programs that continue to subsidize investment in Iran...
...And if it was stopped, the Iranians are perfectly capable of cutting off all oil shipments that pass through the Straits of Hormuz, which would trigger an international oil panic and massive economic dislocation in the West...
...Morgan were invested in Russia's nuclear industry, the very Russian nuclear industry that's building a nuclear plant for Iran that'll soon be up and running...
...Royce says the decision to turn over the $25 million in bank deposits to North Korea represents a setback to needed efforts to further isolate the gangster regime...
...policytowardsNorthKorea,whichbeganin1994whenPresidentClintonofferedKimassistanceinthenaiveexpectationthatthepayoffwouldleadtointernalreformand Kim'sabandoninghisnuclearweaponsprogram.There has been zero reform, and in September the North KoreanswereapparentlycaughtshippingnuclearmaterialtoSyria.AtleasttheIsraelisconsideredthethreat bigenoughthattheyquicklybombedaweaponsmanufacturing site in Syria only three days after a North Koreanshipdockedatanearbyportwithacargoinnocentlylabeled"cement...
...While there has been some success getting certain banks to stop doing P O L I T I C S 5 2 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 7 LooseningtheScrews by John H. Fund W officialbusinessinIran,moneyflowscontinuetopropup MahmoudAhmadinejadfromcountriessuchasAustria, India,Pakistan,andTurkey.AndChinaandRussiaaren't going to walk away from their investments in Iran's oil andnaturalgasfieldsanytimesoon...
...Others are more difficult...
...A spokesman for J.P...
...Ifwedon'timplodetheregime, I have little confidence they will carry through on their promises to dismantle their nuclear program...
Vol. 40 • November 2007 • No. 9
