DPRK F'd US in the A

Last week you might have had a feeling of confusion. "Did the Bush administration just do a good thing in a competent manner?" you thought to yourself. They seemingly got the North Koreans to turn over papers on all their nuclear activities and destroy an entire enrichment facility. Plus it pissed off John Bolton/right wingers something fierce and gutted that "talking is appeasement" argument the right keeps trying to make. Great, right?

PSYCH!!!! You haven't been paying attention the past 7 years! The State Department hates the deal (outside of Rice), the agreement doesn't say that the North Koreans will turn over all their papers on nuclear weapons and programs only that they "will discuss" doing so, that list will only contain plutonium programs not uranium programs if they even turn it over, and they didn't destroy the Yongbyon facility, just the cooling tower, which can not only be rebuilt rather easily, but might not even be needed due to the facility's close proximity to a river. It was all PR bullshit.

You are magnificent bastards, Bush Administration. Magnificent. I salute you.

Edit: Apparently Cheney was against it, though probably not for any good reason, like it was a bad deal, and Bush did on the hopes that it would "improve his legacy." Buddy, that ship has fuckin' sailed.

Also, this. Key grafs:

But the declaration gave no information about its programme to enrich uranium or its sharing of nuclear technology with other rogue states - two demands that Washington had previously insisted were non-negotiable if a deal was to be reached.

This was a significant backdown in America's approach to a state that Mr Bush once described as part of the "axis of evil".

...

"There are some big big holes in this which are going to attract criticism inevitably," said Michael Green, an East Asia expert at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. "The North Koreans have whittled us down to where we are, which is essentially we're giving them everything we've promised at this stage in exchange for just the plutonium piece."

In case you forgot, we got into this diplomatic clusterfuck when Bush essentially canceled a Clinton era deal because they were enriching uranium, which wasn't part of the original Clinton deal. North Korea said "fuck it", started making the quicker and easier plutonium bombs and became a nuclear state. Now we're essentially moving back to the framework of the earlier Clinton deal, except North Korea gets to keep the plutonium they already weaponized as well as whatever bombs they made, keep enriching uranium, and they get a bunch of sanctions eased off.

I say again, bravo Bush. Everything you touch turns to shit. Try not to burn down the White House when you leave, Clouseau.