Chris Hill’s Record of Success? Examples, please.

CHRIS HILL’S CONFIRMATION HEARING starts tomorrow, and the Weekly Standard has (second only to this blog) owned the story. Stephen Hayes relates the story of Hill’s insubordination to his bosses in talking directly to the North Koreans, which is a prohibition I find it hard to believe the last Administration was really serious about enforcing. Frankly, a writer of Hayes’s caliber could have done far better, and I hope he will yet.

Still, Hayes manages to do much better than the reliably shallow Joe Klein, whose lazy defense of Hill quotes Hillary Clinton gushing about Hill’s “persistence and success” in dealing with North Korea. The problem is that neither Klein nor Clinton can cite one tangible, meaningful example this success, and no, broken pre-owned promises don’t count. Care to try again?

Now here’s something I did not know, but which puts Hill’s sidelining of Kim Jong Il’s atrocities in some historical context. Remember Radovan Karadzic? He was the big-haired Serbian butcher who started and prosecuted a genocidal war that killed half a million Bosnians, and he apparently shared Kim Jong Il’s exquisite sensitivity at identifying an easy mark:

Christopher Hill, who was acting as Holbrooke’s “principal assistant” in the negotiations, pleaded with Holbrooke, on Karadzic’s behalf, to put the guarantee in writing. To Holbrooke’s credit, he refused. It’s hard to muster much outrage at Holbrooke’s conniving to get Karadzic to step aside, but that he continues to lie about his role in the negotiations is far more troublesome.

Hill’s role is less easily defended. The primary objection to his appointment as Ambassador to Iraq was his lies before a Senate Committee seeking assurance that human rights would remain at the fore of his negotiations with the North Koreans. Now we know that Hill was similarly sympathetic to Karadzic, who was responsible for some of the worst atrocities in the wars that tore apart Yugoslavia. He was willing to grant Karadzic immunity for those abuses in writing, even though as Holbrooke later conceded to one source, Karadzic never held up his end of the bargain.

This is precisely the complaint against Hill’s work in North Korea — a willingness to offer written guarantees in exchange for the easily broken pledges of men who, like Karadzic, ought to be charged with crimes against humanity. And his reward for this will be a post in Baghdad? [The Weekly Standard Blog]

Hill’s efforts may have jeopardized efforts to hold Karadzic accountable for, among other crimes, the shelling of Sarajevo, the death camp at Omarska, and the massacre at Srebrenica. This must be more of that “smart, tough” diplomacy we were promised.