Just wondering why Bill Clinton went instead of Hillary.
Answering my own question, do you think they want to keep this “informal” rather than “formal” by sending an ex-President instead of the current Sec. of State? I mean, certainly nobody is fooled to think he just hopped on a plane and went without informing Obama and Hillary and is doing this just to meet hot Korean chicks.
Is sending ex-Presidents standard procedure when dealing with nations where diplomatic channels are tenuous at best?
Yeah, it’s not that uncommon as I understand it. Though they say Jimmy Carter likes to go around of his own volition. 
Why on earth would they send Hillary when the North Koreans recently sneered at her as a schoolgirl, among a plethora of other childishly nasty insults? Why dignify that pathetic ragtag regime with an official of her stature? Even assuming she could or would go to a country that has no diplomatic relations with the USA.
They’re right next to Japan - maybe they were just suggesting how they wanted Hillary to dress?
-Joe
Ewwwwwwwwwwwww…
Need brain bleach…
The North Koreans got Clinton to fall for their BS once - maybe they are hoping Slick Willie will be what Mr. Peanut was in 1994.
Regards,
Shodan
That’s not exactly how I was going to put it - I was going to say relations between the U.S. and North Korea were pretty good under Clinton, at leats from NK’s perspective - but I think we’re thinking the same thing. 
They’re not negotiating a treaty or sanctions here, it’s a hostage situation. So perhaps it makes sense to send a former president, since ex-presidents carry a lot of diplomatic clout but are a bit removed from the actual U.S. government.
Bill kept NK from developing nukes on his watch, and built up a pile of good will with the crazy man.
Perhaps he can convince Jong to forget our disastrous ‘policies’ of the past eight years, and let the newsies go.
No he didn’t - read the cite.
Regards,
Shodan
I don’t recall any nukes going off on Bill’s watch.
It was W. that forced that little debacle, by being such an asshole with respect to diplomacy.
The idea that either Clinton or Bush are responsible for North Korean nukes is well…just stupid.
The Axis of Evil nonsense and the diplomacy-is-for-pussies policy didn’t do any good for anybody, but blaming the whole thing on Bush is shortsighted. North Korea spent several years of Clinton’s term developing nuclear weapons in secret despite promising they would not, so in other words he gave them aid in exchange for nothing, which is not typically a good bargain. The development of those weapons made them a bigger headache for everybody later on.
Exactly. Getting Bill Clinton to come and negotiate is not as big a coup for Kim as the US officially groveling for the their return, but since there is no chance of that happening it is the next best thing.
Sh. They’re on a roll. Don’t confuse them with facts.
I was going to say essentially what Marley said: Bill Clinton is not acting as an official party of the United States. Likely he is able to accomplish more as a good will ambassador than his wife would be in her official capacity as SoS.
This isn’t quite right. There were two nuclear weapons program: a uranium-based program and a much more dangerous plutonium based program. The Agreed Framework was about the plutonium program and the Clinton deal was successful in ensuring that the plutonium reactor remained in mothballs during his presidency.
Now there were reports about North Korea admitting to a uranium program in 2002 but the whole thing is shrouded in mystery. IIRC they later denied admitting to it and I don’t believe there is any hard evidence about its existence or extent. We don’t know that this program produced fissile material sufficient for a single bomb.
Meanwhile Bush scrapped the Agreed Framework without putting anything in its place apart from tough talk. North Korea called his bluff, re-opened the Yonbyon reactor, took the plutonium and built and tested bombs.
So bottom line: Clinton successfully froze the plutonium weapons program during his presidency but there may have been a much less dangerous uranium program behind his back. Bush did nothing to stop either program, blustered pointlessly and as a result North Korea is a de facto nuclear weapons state. By any measure his policy was a vast failure where Clinton’s was at least partially successful.
Thank you for the background, Lantern.
Anyway coming back to OP, I would imagine Hillary has a lot on her plate and from the larger foreign policy perspective this is not a big matter. Bill is ideal in that he has a high international profile but isn’t particularly busy. Now that Carter is getting old I suppose he will be the go-to former President for these kinds of matters. I can’t imagine even a future Republican president wanting to send George W.
The hostage thing is not connected to any other aspect of diplomacy or intergovernmental relations or regional security, or anything else that a SecState ought to involve her government with. It’s an isolated situation well-suited for a respected “contract diplomat” able to focus on the matter in isolation.
Plus, even though Carter has done this sort of thing regularly since he left office, maybe he’s just too old now and it’s time to break in his replacement.
Seems to me that smooth-talking cranky foreigners is the best use of Bill’s particular set of talents.
Here is the text of the Agreed Framework. I didn’t see any references limiting it to just plutonium. And this cite mentions specifically that the program discovered in 2002 was in violation of the 1994 agreement. The United States, Japan, and South Korea all seem to agree that it was, since they halted the oil supplies promised to NK under the Agreed Framework. The IAEA board of governors also agrees.
Well, they denied it, but I don’t know of anyone who is in any doubt that they were lying.
Not by the measure of keeping NK from developing nukes. That was the idea, and it didn’t happen.
Regards,
Shodan