So Bill Clinton returns in triumph from North Korea, with two grateful female journalists for company on the flight home.

Naturally, there is lots of speculation about what lay behind the trip. Was the release of the imprisoned journalists really pre-arranged? Was Clinton’s mission purely humanitarian, or did he discuss other matters in his long meeting with Kim Jong-Il?

I certainly hope that Clinton did stray onto other issues. There is obviously an urgent need to explore whatever scope there is for diplomacy, with an erratic and dangerous nuclear-armed government, headed by the sick-looking “dear leader”.

In fact, I think it would be a good idea to make Clinton the Obama administration’s special representative to North Korea. He knows the dossier well from his time in the White House. He has a reasonably close, if complicated, relationship with the US Secretary of State.  Obama has appointed special envoys for the Middle East and for AfPak - why not for North Korea as well?

Dispatch from Iran: Some Police Soften on Neda’s Day: Steve Clemons posts an email from an anonymous observer in The Washington Note. A protester describes trying to access the grave of the young woman who was killed during Iranian elections and the trouble that ensued.

Pressing Pyongyang On Rights: Roberta Cohen wonders whether a preoccupation with North Korean nukes is leading us to neglect human rights

Gary Samore is the kind of sane, well-informed and low-key professional who makes me glad that Obama is now in control of US foreign policy. He works on the National Security Council and has a long and complicated title to do with arms control and nuclear non-proliferation, but he says the president refers to him as “my nukes guy”, which about sums it up. That means that Samore spends his days grappling with some of the most sensitive dossiers in US foreign policy - in particular Iran, Russia and North Korea.

Yesterday he was in London on his way back from the Moscow summit and he gave an on-the-record briefing at the International Institute of Strategic Studies. Naturally there are limits to how frank you can be in such a setting, but I still thought he had several interesting things to say:

First, the nuclear-arms reduction deal agreed in principle in Moscow is essentially a modest first step. The START (strategic arms reduction) treaty runs out at the end of the year, and it is important to have an interim agreement on further reduction - if only to keep the mechanisms for mutual inspections and co-operation going. If they can nail down all the details on this initial relatively modest reduction in nuclear weapons, Samore hopes that Russia and the US will then be able to negotiate a deal for much deeper cuts in nuclear-weapons stock-piles. He says that at that point Russian concerns about missile defence will become more valid. The Americans argue that the system they are working on is so modest that it could only be effective against a country with a very small number of nuclear missiles - such as, potentially, an Iran that went nuclear. Continue reading "Listening to Obama’s nukes guy"

I have taken to more or less discounting sabre-rattling from North Korea - such as the latest batch of missile tests. But maybe that is wrong.

One of China’s leading experts on North Korea, Zhang Lianggui, professor of international strategy at the Communist Party school in Beijing, believes that “the likeliehood of a military confrontation on the Korean peninsula is very high.” The North, he writes, believes “it has overwhelming military superiority” and so would inevitably win a conflict. Prof Zhang seems to think that conflict is most likely to break out initially at sea, perhaps as a result to search ships heading for North Korea. The fight would then spread to the mainland.

So far I have only seen press reports of Prof Zhang’s views. His original article appeared in a Chinese magazine called “World Affairs”, so if anyone can direct me to the full version, I would be very grateful. Tomorrow I am going to a discussion meeting with Gray Samore, the White House’s non-proliferation man, so perhaps there will be more to report then.

North Korea

A great graphic from the FT on the key members of Kim Jong-il’s mystery-shrouded family.

And so it was that Barack Hussein Obama visited Europe. In London, he rescued the world economy. In Strasbourg, he healed the Nato alliance. In Prague, he rid the world of nuclear weapons. In Ankara, he reconciled Islam and the west. And on the seventh day, he got back on to Air Force One and disappeared into a cloudless sky.

Was it all a dream? I fear so.

On many levels, the new US president’s first tour of Europe was indeed a triumph. Mr Obama was articulate, ambitious and charming. His personal style has a touch of the emperor and a touch of the rock star – but with an appealing humility that is common to neither profession.

While his manner was relaxed, Mr Obama also consistently displayed an instinct for bold action that seems to be beyond the European leaders he mingled with. He wants to abolish nuclear weapons, shock the world economy back into recovery and redouble efforts to win the war in Afghanistan.

The remainder of the article can be read here. Please post comments below.

For a while this felt like it was going to be a bad night for Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton won a huge victory in Kentucky - and the television pundits had hours to dwell gloomily on Obama’s failure there. But Kentucky was then offset by a big win for Obama in Oregon.

The fact that Obama chose to give his evening speech in Iowa - the site of his first crucial victory - had excited speculation that he was going to claim that the Democratic race was over. Instead he contented himself with the claim that he is”within reach of the Democratic nomination” - which is undeniable. Instead Obama chose to signal his inevitable victory by a change in tone and focus. He was magnanimous towards Hillary, in the manner of a victor. And he focused the most effective part of his speech on an attack on John McCain. Continue reading "Obama - FDR and McGovern"

Tony Blair is working right up to the last minute. Some FT colleagues and I went to see him earlier this week, for top-secret discussions about the future of Europe. But just as interesting as the off-the-record stuff (I thought), was what Blair had to say about the Oscar-winning film, “The Queen” – which portrays Blair and the Queen, dealing with the aftermath of the death of Princess Diana.

Continue reading "World leaders and their spare time"