You know, it's almost like there's a paradox of statecraft or something

Posted By Daniel W. Drezner Friday, May 29, 2009 - 4:18 PM Share

In the past 24 hours, there's been some interesting stuff coming out on both North Korea and Israel.

On the North Korea issue, Bob Gates' chat with an FT reporter is worth reading just to savor the man's obvious efforts to signal to the North Koreans that they can't control the agenda. However, Mark Landler and David Sanger's New York Times story today suggests that China is thinking about putting the economic and financial hurt on North Korea.

Meanwhile, the United States and Israel appear to be at loggerheads on the question of West Bank settlements. This is particularly interesting:

[T]he tenor of Mrs. Clinton’s comments Wednesday indicated to some analysts that the Obama administration was unlikely to budge from its position, even at the risk of putting Mr. Netanyahu’s government into jeopardy.
“She is stripping away whatever nuance, or whatever fig leaf, that would have allowed a deeply ideological government to make a settlement deal that is politically acceptable at home,” said Aaron David Miller, a public policy analyst at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “They’ve concluded, ‘We’re going to force a change in behavior.’”
Within the Israeli government, however, there is a consensus that the ever-growing settler population must be accommodated.

No one is talking about sanctions just yet on Israel, but the historical precedent here is telling. The last time the U.S. sanctioned Israel was in 1991 on the question of housing settlements. The eventual result was the fall of the Yitzhak Shamir government.

So China is contemplating sanctions against North Korea, and the United States a step away from doing the same thing vis-a-vis Israel. This highlights a cruel irony when it comes to the use of economic pressure -- it works on your friends a lot better than it does against your foes.

[I see where this is going. Stop it!--ed.] Of course, countries are understandably more reluctant to pressure their allies than their adversaries. [I'm warning you!--ed.] Why, it's almost like there's a paradox when it comes to economic sanctions. [All right, that's it, this ridiculously self-promotional blog post is over!!--ed.]

UPDATE: Ed Morse and Michael Makovsky have an excellent essay in The New Republic on the prospects of sanctioning Iran.

EXPLORE:CHINA, ISRAEL, NONPROLIFERATION, SANCTIONS, UNITED STATES

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CONMULLIGAN

6:23 PM ET

May 29, 2009

Does congress actually have the balls?

I'm surprised they've mustered enough courage to actually press the settlement issue; but I don't think they have the stones to sanction Israel. Can you imagine the Republican blowback?

BRETT

6:53 PM ET

May 29, 2009

Poor Gates. He's probably

Poor Gates. He's probably upset that this whole thing is taking him away from his focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In any case, I doubt it will come to true sanctions on Israel. Even the Bush I Era "sanctions" basically amounted to Bush temporarily withholding a certain amount of money in loans to the Israeli government that they had promised - and he paid a political price for it (i.e., he had to go around to major Jewish political donors in the conservative spectrum and promise his undying support for Israel).

BLUE13326

11:52 PM ET

May 30, 2009

That article you linked to

That article you linked to doesn't say that China is thinking about putting sanctions on N. Korea, only that we're trying to get it to, and quotes an unnamed US official that he's been 'pleasantly surprised' that China hasn't openly objected to us taking action, which we haven't done yet. Quite a stretch to interpret that in the way you do.

In fact, this article says China is already objecting to the possibility of a tougher stand:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-us-korea31-2009may31,0,4603747.story?track=rss

SIMPLESIMON

3:06 PM ET

May 31, 2009

China and North Korea

From Julian E. Barnes article in LA Times today, it is clear that China will continue to be an ally of North Korea in later’s attempts to string along US, Japan and South Korea. China is really NOT sincere in its proclamations about criticizing North Korea’s latest nuclear test. China is just offering leap service while raising the ghost of refugees overflowing to China if North Korean regime was to collapse. China has created that ghost to prevent Korean unification.

Everyone knows that North Korea’s lifeline passes through Beijing. Only way to stop this continuing North Korean blackmail is for Obama administration to encourage Japan to go nuclear. If and when China hollers against it, US has to demand that China reign in on its client state if China wants non-nuclear East Asia. That is the only leverage that will work against North Korea.