[rst]

That deal had North Korea's weapons-grade production facilities shut down for eight years, despite US foot-dragging on our side (we'd agreed to supply reactors that were not suitable for weapons production, and then the GOP Congress refused to fund that).

So, what restarted weapons-grade plutonium production there? The George W. Bush administration effectively abrogated the deal, claiming that the DPRK had a separate active nuclear weapons program, based on evidence about as sketchy as what they provided to argue that Saddam Hussein had one. (He didn't.) The Yongbyon plutonium-production reactor was back in operation within a month.

Clinton's deal was imperfect, but it worked a whole lot better than get-tough shit from his Republican successor.

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agreed_Framework

[mythrwy]

That's some serious revisionism.

Bill Clinton's administration allowed NK to obtain nuclear weapons while supplying them with food and fuel. Their approach didn't work at all and is how we wound up in this state.

For the record not blaming the administration (Republican administration have done things equally or more stupid so not a partisan taking point, it's just they can't be excused for the dramatic failure on this because someone prefers Democrats). Likely it seemed the best course of action, they expected at least some compliance, but NK did not abide by it's agreements at all.

https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/dprkchron

<edit> NK also made commitments to Putin to suspend the ICBM program in exchange for aid which they also violated. So again, Clinton is not the only one burnt by them. But saying the Clinton administration's approach was a success is not right. It was very much an unsuccess.

[rst]

The DPRK's first nuclear test was in 2006 --- six years after Clinton left office, and three years after Bush's temper tantrum led to the breakdown of Clinton's deal and the unsealing of the Yongbyon reactor. If you think it's revisionist to say Clinton couldn't have done much about North Korea years after leaving office, you have an odd way of defining that term.

[mythrwy]

Because they had been cheating on Uranium enrichment in the late 90's while receiving food and fuel aid.

There is plenty of blame to go around, the Bush administration certainly handled, well just about everything it came across, very badly, but saying the Clinton approach worked is just wrong. It didn't work, NK was cheating on the deal while being fed and fueled. Certainly we shouldn't go back to paying them extortion and bribes, that is not a good idea at all.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/08/...