The World

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?