Bill Clinton’s surprise mission

North Korea this week released two captured American journalists, following a dramatic 24-hour visit to Pyongyang by former President Bill Clinton. Capping months of back-channel talks, Clinton met with ailing dictator Kim Jong Il for three hours before flying to Los Angeles with the two women, Euna Lee and Laura Ling. They were captured in March near the Chinese border, where they’d been reporting on human trafficking for Current TV, a network launched by Clinton’s vice president, Al Gore. In June, the women were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for illegally entering North Korea. North Korea said Clinton had apologized for the journalists’ “hostile acts,” but the White House denied that any apology had been offered.

North Korean officials greeted Clinton with all the pomp of a state visit, a sharp departure from the belligerent tone that characterized Pyongyang’s recent exchanges with his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The visit stirred speculation that the U.S. and North Korea could restart talks on Pyongyang’s rogue nuclear-weapons program. But the White House insisted that Clinton was traveling as a “private citizen” with the sole aim of gaining the journalists’ release.

As if Clinton “would be dispatched simply to negotiate the pardoning of a couple of prisoners,” said Fred Kaplan in Slate.com. As president, after all, Clinton negotiated the deal that “kept North Korea’s plutonium program under lock for the next eight years.” But if the Clinton mission is a sign that Obama wants to restart talks, he must insist that North Korea actually dismantle its nuclear hardware—not just promise to do so. We know what North Korean promises are worth.

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The release of Ling and Lee was heartwarming, said Gordon Chang in The Wall Street Journal, but at what price? Clinton’s visit conferred legitimacy on Kim just as he is reportedly weakened by pancreatic cancer and facing opposition from his own military. Kim is an unstable, brutal dictator. “Now is not the time to throw him a lifeline.”

Yes, Clinton’s visit enhanced Kim’s prestige, said the Los Angeles Times in an editorial. So what? Clinton gave up nothing of substance and possibly helped change the trajectory of U.S.–North Korean relations. Besides, “Clinton got the chance to look the reclusive Kim in the eye” and “judge his state of mind and health.” That can only help the White House in its dealings with the Hermit Kingdom.