By Oh Young-jin
Assistant Managing Editor
What would be the biggest challenge facing U.S. President Obama in dealing with North Korea?
If history repeats itself, it may not be Kim Jong-il, a stroke-stricken North Korean leader, but conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. After all, however cantankerously Pyongyang may behave with its paltry nuclear arsenal, it is nothing but a nation in decline that has to rely on outside help to feed its own population. This Stalinist nation's survival tactic is based on its clever ways of creating cracks in the Seoul-Washington alliance. North Korea may see fertile grounds for its technique to thrive on the ``mismatch'' of Obama and President Lee.
Here is a history lesson.
Eight years ago, when Republican President Bush took office, Bush's policy boiled down to ABC ― anything but Clinton― putting all his Democratic predecessor's work in reverse, or having it restarted from scratch. The Bush people vetoed Clinton's request for permission to go to Pyongyang for a summit late in his term with hopes of consummating a peace deal prepared by then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. In a nutshell, Bush wanted to bring discipline to Clinton's laissez-faire policy toward the North Korean dictatorship.
Bush unilaterally recanted all nuclear accords with North Korea that helped put North Korea's nuclear program on ice. North Korea went ballistic. Then-South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, better known by his initials, D.J., flew to Washington to dissuade Bush, but failed miserably, being forced to express regret repeatedly during their joint news conference. It was the first big crack in Kim's Nobel Peace Prize-winning ``Sunshine Policy'' of engaging its sworn enemy. Still, DJ's people call Bush's rule ``eight lost years.''
Kim was succeeded by another liberal-minded President, Roh Moo-hyun, who was elected on a platform of bringing an end to the big-brother-small-brother relationship with the United States.
From the start, Roh and Bush agreed to disagree with each other on how to deal with North Korea. North Korea put their nuclear reactors back in operation and exploded a small nuclear device in an underground test.
It was well into Bush's second four-year term that Washington came full circle to try its version of Clinton-style engagement, seen as a half-hearted but desperate effort to ``produce'' a foreign policy achievement to gift-wrap his lack of legacy. But it came too late, with even his supporters turning on his policy u-turn.
Back to the present.
This u-turn may be repeated, meaning a 360-degree turn back to where it was eight years ago. This time, however, Seoul and Washington have switched positions.
For its first eight months, President Lee has achieved what Bush has failed to do for eight years ― the closure of tours to Mt. Geumgang, which Washington sees as a cash source that it believes was funding the North's nuclear programs. In addition, Gaeseong Industrial Complex, a Seoul-run light-industry factory park, may face a shutdown. The two are the most visible results of 10 years of Seoul's engagement policy.
In the process of reversing what changes the 10 previous liberal years have brought about, Lee is sometimes seen to resemble Bush more than Bush himself. There is no denying that his government is not ready to give any more free lunches to North Korea, and that it is trying to downsize the inter-Korean cooperation fund, the key source of government-level subsidies to the impoverished Pyongyang.
In one climax of his new policy of reciprocity, Lee nixed a wide range of cooperative agreements with the North, hammered out during the last months of Roh's time in office.
Getting ready to take on the job of top U.S. diplomat, Hillary Clinton may feel tempted to pick up where her husband left off. A clever politician, Hillary certainly knows she can score better on North Korea than the entangled Middle East situation.
Obama hasn't said enough about North Korea to shed light on his policy ideas regarding the country. The only guiding principle he uttered in public about North Korea and other enemy states is his willingness to talk with them.
Here are a couple of questions that cut to the heart of the future direction by which the Seoul-Washington alliance will go in handling North Korea.
First, will the Obama-Clinton team listen to Lee? One indication is a public complaint by Rep. Chung Mong-joon, who on Lee's behalf recently visited Washington and met Obama lieutenants for consultations. Chung said that the Obama people didn't place a priority on Korean affairs.
Does Chung's complaint mean that Obama is planning a full reversal of Bush's North Korea policy and will follow the Clinton path? If so, how would Lee react? Is it the beginning of another ``lost eight years'' for Koreans? I hope not.