Since being sworn-in nearly two years ago, President Obama has blamed his predecessor for many of America's problems. Typically, Republicans have pushed back at these assertions, arguing that Obama refuses to accept responsibility for anything.

But an exception to this rule can be found in the recent heightening of tensions between South and North Korea: Some prominent Republicans have assigned partial blame to President George W. Bush for mishandling the North Korea situation.

Appearing on "Fox News Sunday" this weekend, former State Department official Liz Cheney joined that chorus when she said,

I do think what we have seen [in North Korea] is an example of how provocative American weakness can be. And I think that unfortunately it is policy of weakness that has expanded back into the Bush administration -- into the last years of the Bush administration. . . . We have seen time and time again North Korea -- if they test a nuclear weapon, there are no consequences. . . . And what they have learned is that their belligerence, in fact, oftentimes yields from us capitulation and concessions.
This is not the first time we've heard this. Cheney's comments about the latter years of the Bush administration are consistent with what former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton wrote in his 2007 book, "Surrender Is Not An Option." In it, he wrote,

the state of play at this writing is that the permanent government has triumphed over Bush, or at least over his principles. This is a far cry from the Bush who said to Putin at Camp David in October 2003 that Kim Jong-il was "like a baby who throws his food on the floor," so that the adults come around to pick it up, whereupon the baby throws food on the floor again."
Sadly, the baby, it seems, is developing nukes.

Coming on the heels of President Bush's tour for his book "Decision Points" -- which many consider an attempt to influence his legacy -- it will be interesting to see whether the worsening situation on the Korean peninsula will ultimately be laid at the feet of the 43rd president.

Filed Under: George W. Bush, Bush Administration, Republicans, Foreign Policy, Obama Administration, Nuclear Proliferation, White House, Matt Lewis and the News, Barack Obama
Tagged: dailyguidance, John Bolton, liz cheney, north korea attacks south korea
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/11/29/some-prominent-republicans-blaming-bush-for-north-korea/

ever heard of the Agreed Framework? Clintons bribe in 1994..

how did that work out?

It worked fine untill Bush stopped all dialog and labled them the axis of evil and began a propaganda campaign to further push North Korea into a corner. I dont have short term memory loss and when I do I can allways google.

Bush was president in 1999?


"There were increasing disagreement between North Korea and U.S. on the scope and implementation of the treaty. When by 1999 economic sanctions had not been lifted and full diplomatic relations between U.S. and North Korea had not been established, North Korea warned that they would resume nuclear research unless the U.S. kept up its end of the bargain. U.S. has repeatedly stated that further implementation would be stalled as long as suspicions remained that the North Korean nuclear weapons research program continued covertly."

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Agreed_Framework

In the fall of 2002, long before the North Koreans
broke the seals placed on its nuclear facilities by
the International Atomic Energy Agency and months
before they ejected the IAEA's inspectors, the DPRK
stated officially and publicly that it would agree to
a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, if the United States
would discuss the outstanding issues face to face.

Face-to-face negotiations are precisely what George W.
Bush rejects. His first state visitor after he was
sworn in in 2001 was Kim Dae Jung, then-president of
South Korea and a Nobel Peace Prize winner for his
attempts to build bridges to the North. Secretary of
State Colin Powell, after meeting with President Kim,
announced that the United States would continue to
support Kim Dae Jung's "sunshine policy" toward the
DPRK and would continue the Clinton administration's
policy of openness to both countries. A few hours
later, President Kim had met with Bush and been told
that because the U.S. president "loathed" Kim Jong Il,
the mercurial and sometimes very oddly behaving "Dear
Leader" of North Korea, American support for the
sunshine policy and the Clinton policy was withdrawn.

While Bush was focusing on spurious intelligence to
spur the United States to war with Iraq, Pyongyang was
desperately sending signals that it did not
particularly want to reprocess the plutonium in its
nuclear reactor, but that U.S. actions were forcing
just such a decision. While the Bush administration
looked high and low for a nonexistent Iraqi nuclear
program, Kim Jong Il's scientists were preparing to
reprocess plutonium, ordering the chemicals and,
finally, ejecting the IAEA inspectors from its Yong
Byong nuclear installation.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NucNews/message/18225?var=0

God it is so easy to blame everything from Illegal Aliens from Mars to Anthrax epidemics on Bush! N Korea has been a problem since the 1950s. If anyone set the pace to show America's weakness in the world forum it was President Jimmy "Peanuts" Carter and look at what the Iranian Hostage Crisis led to.

No, Nukes in N Korea is China's baby as well as the lax and poor response to the constant provocations of the N Koreans by the UN, the worlds largest ineffectual debate society!

So do we blame Bush for Iran having the bomb too? OH WAIT A MINUET! ISN'T RUSSIA THE BIG INVESTOR THERE???

if clintons regime felt that north korea was still working covertly on a nuclear weapons program in 1999 and they didn't fulfill the terms of the agreement, why blame bush?

they knew north korea was working on the program that is why the clinton regime didn't fulfill its obligations.

clintons bribe didn't work. so of course you have to blame bush

Clinton (the greatest Douchbag in the world short of Obama!) also gave the Taliban $53 MILLION dollars to stop producing opium to sell as heroin to us to fund their war on us! Did it work? HELL NO! Democrats are so hung up on appeasement and history has proven repeatedly that appeasement doe snot work. Hitler just ran roughshod over Europe while the League of Nations (which became the UN) did everything to appease him and did it keep us from war? Hell NO AGAIN!

One more time,

APPEASEMENT DOES NOT WORK! The only thing people respond to quickly is brute force!

A brief history of Iran showes how the CIA over threw a democratic government in Iran in 1953. The Shaw came to power in a coup led by the CIA and ran Iran with an Iron fist. The Shaw made saddam look moderate. Realy people please try to educate yourselves on real historical facts and not the propaganda version of events. Anyhow the backlash from our support of the Shaw a brutal dicator is what led to the Iran hostage crisis in the first place. We were what kept the shaw in power while he brutalised and tortured all oposition.

well the facts are appeasemnt did work in Koreas case and when all dialog stopped from Bush they made a bomb that actualy worked and we did nothing because as we have shown the world. "If you get the bomb we wont invade you but if you dont have one, as in Iraq, we will. so basicly our actions speak for themselves, our propaganda says something entirely differant.

And this justifies Jimmy Carter's handling of the problem how exactly? If you would like to get more historical Iran didn't exist before WWII. Thank England for them and Israel and Palestine and all the country's borders as apportioned in the middle east. England tried to lump Shiite, Suni, Kurd, Bedouin, and several flavors of race into a pile of Rainbow hugging idealisms where these people were supposed to get along. unfortunately they only thing that kept them from killing each other was brutalizing both sides. Saddam ruled by brutality as well but he was comparable to the Shaw, not lesser of the evils those two perpetrated. Nope, can't buy the Dogma. Frankly the whole area if rife with excitement thanks to racial demographics so many "educated" people miss here.

Now for the CIA. Hey, they dance to their own drum beat. The KGB is better than them still! The CIA is so half azzed I am amazed they get anything done at all!

They actualy drew the maps to make each country weak mixing the differant peoples instead of one nation per tribe or what not they spread them all out. Clever of them eh?

I have an ingrown toe nail because of Bush.

ITs pretty clear to me your fairly clueless on most issues. Have you noticed since we invaded Afghanistan opium production has increased dramaticly? Jees dude the Taliban stopped opium production totaly when they were in power by the way. It only started back up when Umerika took charge.

Before it was Iran it was Persia.
It's borders have changed many times. At one time it included Afganistan.
It existed long before the US was a nation.
It's borders became what they are today in 1935.

Bush is an idiot and a coward.
His legacy to the world and the damage he did to America should never be forgotten.

Kuwait was part of Iraq untill the brits re- drew the maps they wanted a weak vassel state so they could use Kuwait as a fuel stop for their navy.

Clinton was to busy getting Sucked and F'ed to do anything productive.