by CKR
Glenn Kessler today tells us about one of them: Christopher Hill, who has been in charge of the negotiations with North Korea. Hill has managed to persuade North Korea to begin decommissioning its plutonium-producing reactor at Yongbyon and to make its records of plutonium production available.
Somehow, Hill managed to persuade Condoleezza Rice and George Bush to let him run the negotiations his way. And he made it work.
But Jeffrey Lewis tells us that the rumor mill says that Hill will be leaving his position “any day now.” Lewis speculates that Hill is being pushed out by the Cheney faction. That’s entirely possible. I’d add another factor.
Through deft use of public appearances and the news media, Hill also has become an international figure in his own right. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon last year hailed him as a "diplomat par excellence" whose "persistence and skillful negotiation have brought us close, I believe, to resolving this last legacy of the Cold War." Along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Aga Khan, Hill is even a finalist for Britain’s prestigious Chatham House Prize -- given to the statesman who has had the greatest impact on international relations -- for keeping the North Korean "talks alive and viable, against seemingly impossible odds," including the "complex internal politics of Washington."Two things are wrong here, from the point of view of Hill’s bosses and the broader bureaucracy. One is that he’s doing a good job where the earlier application of the conventional wisdom (conventional within the administration, that is) failed. The other is that he is getting credit for it from outside.
It doesn’t matter that he really is doing a good job. It does matter that others in his organization, and perhaps (even worse), his bosses have their noses out of joint.
I’m hoping that someone (Condi? The Prez?) will take things in hand, keep Hill on, and shut down the others. We need more diplomats like Hill. And keeping him on would signal to others in the State Department that this is how they should do their jobs.
But the combination of political and bureaucratic knives can be pretty deadly. It wouldn’t be the first time.