Rescue Missions Complicate U.S. Diplomacy

Trips by Sen. Jim Webb to Myanmar, Bill Clinton to North Korea Were Publicly Successful, But Also Present Long-Term Risk

(AP)  Rescue mission or diplomatic risk?

While the sight of a freed American prisoner landing on home soil is a celebrated victory, recent high-profile diplomatic rescues in North Korea and Myanmar can also complicate U.S. diplomacy.

The release Sunday of an American man from Myanmar after a visit there by Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia follows closely on the heels of a similar rescue of two journalists by former President Bill Clinton in Pyongyang earlier this month.

Both gained their public goal - the freedom of U.S. captives. But both also nudged open a diplomatic door that could either invite welcome change or slam shut on President Barack Obama's emerging foreign policy.

With their timing so close, the Clinton and Webb missions may suggest to other rogue nations that in dealings with the Obama administration, holding American hostages can be a profitable political ploy.

"They can look at this and say, there's a new game afoot," said John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. "They think, we can get legitimacy and high level attention by using Americans as pawns."

Such visits, argue experts, can give regime leaders an aura of respect and recognition that may make it harder for the U.S. to press for sanctions or continue isolation policies aimed at forcing change in everything from humans rights to nuclear power.

At the same time, Bolton said, there is the risk that other would-be heroes across the Washington power spectrum may also decide that they too could wage "publicity hound diplomacy."

Still, the solo rescue missions can spawn benefits that make the risks worth taking.

First and foremost, such lower level contact that doesn't involve a sitting president or secretary of state can take the temperature for change without the added pressure of a formal engagement that is more likely to demand results.

In that way, it can be a face-saving measure, since an unsuccessful mission by an unofficial delegate is less likely to be condemned as a White House failure.

If successful, the solo sessions can lead to a long-term payoff - thawed relations between enemy nations or a shift in policy.

Obama has advocated more contact with other less-friendly nations, even including a willingness to talk with Iran.

He has said he would be willing to talk to anyone without preconditions, referring to nations with whom the Bush administration had refused to hold discussions.

Webb on Sunday said he hoped his Myanmar visit and meeting with military junta leader Senior Gen. Than Shwe would improve relations between the two countries. Washington has led efforts to impose political and economic sanctions on the regime because of its poor human rights record and failure to transfer power to democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi after a 1990 election.

The senator, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's East Asia and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee, is the first member of Congress to visit Myanmar in more than a decade. He said he plans to discuss his recommendations with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton when he returns.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Sunday that the White House had monitored the Myanmar situation, but he had little else to say about the Webb trip.

"Obviously this was something that he did independently," Gibbs said of Webb. He was briefed before he left by the State Department, Gibbs said.

Webb's visit to Myanmar, also called Burma, secured the freedom of John Yettaw, 53, of Missouri, who was apprehended after swimming uninvited to Suu Kyi's lakeside residence, where she is being held on house arrest.

Stephen Flanagan, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Webb's mission provides an opening for the Obama administration to begin a dialogue with Myanmar, which does not now have diplomatic relations with the U.S.

Flanagan also dismissed suggestions that the rescue missions undercuts Secretary Clinton. She has a full agenda and is clearly shaping policy, he said.

At the same time, however, he said Bill Clinton's trip to North Korea, where he won the release of two journalists, was more diplomatically risky than the Webb trip. Critics said the former president's meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il gave undue legitimacy to the combative, nuclear-testing nation.

"That mission opened up problematic questions," said Flanagan, including suggestions that it undermined efforts to increase sanctions on North Korea to pressure the nation to recommit to six-nation talks on the dismantling of its nuclear weapons program.

Unofficial solo diplomatic missions by former leaders and senior lawmakers have been a diplomatic staple for decades. In the 1950s, then-Sen. Hubert Humphrey used a fact-finding trip to Russia to press for arms control in a conversation with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson went to North Korea in 1996 when he was a member of Congress, to help secure the release of an American, Evan C. Hunziker, of Tacoma, Wash., detained for three months on spy charges. Two years earlier he helped arrange the freedom of a U.S. pilot, Bobby Hall, whose helicopter had strayed into North Korean airspace. Richardson brought a tape of the American Western movie, "Maverick," as a gift for Kim Jong Il.

At times, the missions are not sanctioned by the U.S. administration. The Rev. Jesse Jackson ignored the wishes of the White House in 1999 and traveled to the former Yugoslavia to win the release of three U.S. soldiers held captive there.

[TheMasses2016]

I wonder what payment Clinton expects for "rescuing" Wong Tongue and Sarah Lee?

[pvperson3]

I wonder how fast the criticism would turn to praise if a republican was involved in saving Americans imprisoned abroad?

[Tu_eres]

by gdin23 August 17, 2009 3:11 PM EDT
WHICH OF OUR ANTI AMERICAN FRIENDS FROM THE REPUBLI''CON'' PARTY PENNED THIS PIECE OF GARBAGE

A **** who calls himself pythoncharly

[TheMasses2016]

Yea, python only has 1/2 a brain - and not the good 1/2.

[rdepontb]

What a piece of tripe press this is. Someone could make the case that the US has been on course for making diplomacy difficult for some time now. Diplomacy based on other countries oil reserves, markets, cheap sources of labor, religion---did any of these bases for international relations make our lives simple "in the long run?"

Give it a break, stop making up news.