HILLARY'S TRAVELS

Posted at 8:03 a.m. ET

More on the Obama foreign policy, which becomes more troubling by the hour.  Hillary Clinton is in Asia, and will deal with the North Korean problem.  The great John Bolton comments on her effort thus far, and doesn't like what he sees.  Bolton also had the courage to break with the Bush administration on the issue:

Every incoming administration is entitled to a few weeks of touting its superiority, but the bumper stickers need to disappear when overseas travel begins, replaced by real policy, not slogans. Otherwise, observers would conclude that the president, and perhaps his secretary of State, are still running for office, rather than realizing they are already there.

Truth:  They're still running for office.

Clinton accurately called North Korea's nuclear program "the most acute challenge to stability in northeast Asia," and she established the objective that the North "completely and verifiably eliminate" its nuclear weapons activities. This familiar formulation implicitly -- and very unfortunately -- accepts that North Korea can keep a nuclear program as long as it is "peaceful." Whatever else it may be, this deal is not "smart." Leaving Pyongyang with any nuclear capability simply invites future abuse and a recurrence of the very problem we need to "eliminate."

Nice to have a little clarity of thought, right?

Equally unfortunately, Clinton made no reference to the global scope of North Korea's threat, notably in the tumultuous Middle East, where the North's contribution to nuclear and ballistic missile proliferation has long stoked regional tensions...

...The secretary's comments at a subsequent news teleconference only compounded the speech's lack of strategic breadth.

Finally...

Clinton emphasized that she was prepared for "active listening" on her trip. One hopes that she will be particularly active in listening to South Korea and Japan, where the North's repeated acts of duplicity have sunk in far more profoundly than at the State Department. Although there seems to be little reason to hope that the Obama administration will actually offer "change" on North Korea policy, perhaps Clinton will at least return from Asia sobered by the depth of the North's regional and global threat.

Clinton's performance thus far on her Asian trip is muddled.  She exhibits no strength of purpose.  She is representing a president who seems to have little use for America's allies, but much use for its enemies.  As we watch this new administration, we can't help but thinking that we're going back to the left-wing mentality of the late sixties, where democracies were suspect and dictatorships had to be "understood."  That mentality began the long decline of American foreign policy that was stopped by Ronald Reagan.  I wish we had another Reagan now.

February 18, 2009.