The Elders Warn Biden on Gaza. North Korea Tests Again.
The destruction of Gaza is making Israel less safe and the U.S. less respected. Kim Jong-un reminds us that the Middle East isn't the only threat we face.
I am trying something a bit different with today’s newsletter. I have been missing in action for the past ten days due to Covid. After three years, the virus finally caught me last week and knocked me on my back. I am now recovered and trying to keep up with developments. There are two in particular that I’d like to highlight, briefly.
The War on Gaza
The first is a powerful statement issued on Monday by former President of Ireland Mary Robinson. She is the chair of The Elders, a group of former global leaders founded by Nelson Mandela in 2007. I have worked closely with this amazing group for many years. My wife and I attended a retreat with them two years ago (on a beautiful Caribbean island) to help develop their excellent nuclear policy paper.
Robinson spoke on the urgent need for the United Nations to act on the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, particularly by approving a new UN resolution up for consideration today.
There is no security justification whatsoever for the mass starvation of over two million people and the obliteration of their homes. Robinson warned that the “destruction of Gaza is making Israel less safe. President Biden’s continuing support for Israel’s actions is also making the world less safe, the Security Council less effective, and US leadership less respected.”
I cannot say it better than she does. I give you her full, eloquent statement, below:
"President Biden’s support for Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza is losing him respect all over the world. The US is increasingly isolated, with allies like Australia, Canada, India, Japan and Poland switching their votes in the UN General Assembly to support an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.
“The UN Security Council will vote again today on a resolution to increase and monitor the humanitarian aid urgently needed in Gaza to save lives. The US cannot afford to be further isolated by vetoing this resolution. But even if passed, such resolutions are not enough. UNSCR 2712, agreed last month, is not being fully implemented. It calls for the protection of civilians, the release of all hostages, and immediate humanitarian access. Only a ceasefire will allow for these calls to be met.
“It is negotiation that has led to Israeli hostages being released. Israeli military action has caused the deaths of Israeli hostages, as well as thousands of Palestinian civilians. The destruction of Gaza is making Israel less safe. President Biden’s continuing support for Israel’s actions is also making the world less safe, the Security Council less effective, and US leadership less respected. It is time to stop the killing.”
North Korean Missiles
The second pressing issue is the continuing nuclear threat in Asia. This morning, I did an interview with CBS Radio News on Monday’s test of an intercontinental ballistic missile by North Korea. Here’s what you need to know.
Early Monday morning, North Korea conducted the third successful test of its Hwasong-18 missile. Although it fired the missile on a lofted trajectory (nearly straight up and straight down) and the missile landed in ocean just west of the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido, the missile has a range of 15,000 miles. It is the third successful test of this missile, the fifth test of an ICBM and the 36th missile test by North Korea this year.
The Hwasong-18 is a solid-fuel missile, meaning that it can be launched on a mobile launcher virtually without warning. It is capable of delivering one or more nuclear warheads to any spot in the United States. Experts at the Federation of American Scientist estimate that North Korea has assembled 20-30 atomic weapons.
North Korea has not flight tested a re-entry vehicle - the nose-cone-shaped device that can accurately guide the nuclear payload to its target through the heat and vibrations created by re-entering the earth’s atmosphere - but such technology is well within North Korea’s capabilities.
I told CBS that the test is the latest indication that U.S. policy towards North Korea has failed. No amount of sanctions or harsh words will stop its nuclear program. North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-un, and its military see the nuclear program as essential to their security. They indicated that this latest test was in response to the U.S. and South Korea meeting this week to incorporate nuclear weapons options in the next round of joint military exercises and the visit of a U.S. nuclear-armed submarine to South Korea. Nuclear weapons, Kim believes, are the surest way of deterring any attack on the North.
Negotiations are the only approach that has ever worked to freeze and roll back North Korea’s program. As odious as it may seem, it is time to return to the bargaining table with Kim. He wants security, including a treaty that would finally and formally end the Korean War. We want to freeze his nuclear and missile programs and explore possibilities of shrinking them. These are the elements of a deal, if the US is willing to engage.
A new paper by the U.S. Institute for Peace explores these diplomatic options. It concludes: “It is imperative to listen to North Korea’s security and political concerns in order to achieve the denuclearization goal…The United States and South Korea should prioritize two corresponding measures, among others: U.S.-North Korea diplomatic normalization and Korean Peninsula peace regime building, which includes sanctions relief, reducing U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises and ending U.S. strategic asset deployments to the Korean Peninsula.”
This approach may not work, but continuing the current policy guarantees continued failure. And many more missile tests.
I believe President Biden is a victim of his 40 plus years in government and is locked into cold war policies when the Middle East was a proxy for Soviet/US competition. The world has changed and support of Israel should be longer be automatic. Inflicting 70000 casualties in Gaza is an abomination and deserves condemnation regardless of the original reason.
As to Korea I am not sure what is to be done. How do you bring them into the community of responsible nations when their internal policies on human rights are despicable? Past administrations have tried food, oil, sit down meetings, etc. I believe that China has to play the major role and its doubtful they will do so in the immediate future.
Joe-Welcome back! We did miss you.
We should all listen to our elders.
If this were occurring on any other place on the face of the earth, we would be leading the charge for cessation of hostilities. If even posit the argument that we’d consider creating a no-fly zone ( Syria, Bosnia?) if the victims weren’t Palestinians and the aggressors weren’t Israelis.
I’m afraid that the President has lost his moral authority and credibility here. How can he argue forcefully for stopping Putin’s aggression in Ukraine while he’s shipping arms to Israel? In LBJ’s woods, that dog won’t hunt.
The thought that he could strike a
bargain with Iran to limit its march towards nuclear weapons was a pipe dream…now, it’s gone forever.
This is a textbook lesson on how to squander hard earned goodwill and credibility. History will not treat us kindly for our participation in this debacle.
Tom