Decision ‘08

One Step Forward In Korea, One Giant Step Back In Iraq

Good news here, I suppose, under the theory that it beats sitting back and doing nothing (i.e., the status quo - and never mind the UN sanctions, they’re a joke, since China and South Korea don’t intend to enforce them):

North Korea agreed on Tuesday to return to six-party talks on dismantling its atomic weapons just weeks after staging its first nuclear test, and a U.S. envoy said he wanted to see “substantial progress” after a year-long hiatus.

Envoys from North Korea, the United States and China met in Beijing and agreed to resume the talks in the near future, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on its Web site.

After the breakthrough meeting, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told a Beijing news conference that he expected “rapid progress” from the next talks, possibly in November or December, but acknowledged that fully settling the nuclear standoff was likely to be painstaking.

“We are a long way from our goal still,” he said. “I have not broken out the cigars and champagne quite yet.”

Yeah, I’d hold off on that champagne, too…particularly when hearing the news from Iraq:

Iraq’s prime minister, in a very public demonstration of his influence over the U.S. military, ordered the lifting on Tuesday of a week-old cordon around the Baghdad militia stronghold of one of his key Shi’ite allies. U.S. troops, at first apparently taken by surprise by the command, abandoned roadblocks within hours around the sprawling Sadr City slum, meeting Nuri al-Maliki’s early evening deadline. He also ordered the clearing of other checkpoints that have snarled traffic around the capital for the past week as U.S. and Iraqi forces have hunted an American soldier of Iraqi origin who was kidnapped, possibly by Shi’ite militiamen.

A Maliki aide said the move, which follows days of public friction between the prime minister and U.S. officials in the run-up to next week’s U.S. congressional election, had been agreed with the U.S. ambassador and the U.S. military commander.

Sure, that’s why the troops were surprised. That’s total b.s., and it’s a slap in the face of the United States. I’m more than out of patience with Maliki. He’s in Sadr’s pocket, and he’s dooming our mission and his country…

UPDATE 12:23 p.m.: More details of the total kowtow to Sadr:

The United States on Tuesday disbanded a five-day-old military blockade of Baghdad’s impoverished Sadr City section, meeting a deadline set by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki under pressure from the anti-U.S. cleric whose militia controls the sprawling Shiite slum.

Maliki ordered that the security cordon be lifted hours after cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called for a civil disobedience campaign in Sadr City to protest the blockade, which the U.S. launched Wednesday in an effort to find an abducted U.S. soldier and capture a purported Iraqi death squad leader.

Armed fighters of Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia had enforced the boycotts, witnesses and residents said — entering schools to force out children and forcing workers and customers to abandon shops and offices, including government electrical facilities.

Maliki is an obstacle to peace…