Adam Daniel Mezei's posterous

Shall we recap what’s been going on over in North Korea these past twenty-four hours? So much action has hit in the fan in just a single DPRK day it’s rendered me positively doolally. To wit,

• former President Jimmy “Give the Palestinians Their State Already!” Carter flew into Pyongyang on a mega-publicized rescue mission to escort long-time North Korean prisoner and born-again US preacher Aijalon Mahli Gomes back Stateside. Check out the photos.
• Bam Bam is rumored to be in China yet again as we speak, visiting with heir apparent Kim Jong-un. The two are likely getting a dressing-down from PRC President Hu Jintao along with a list of precise marching orders on how to formulate DPRK’s statecraft over the next couple of months to avoid bloodshed on the Korean peninsula once more.

Two major events to rock the region.

Don’t tell me, though, that you’re surprised any of this is happening. Didn’t I warn you that September’s set to be a month of thrills, chills, and pratfalls as the Korean Workers Party (KWP) is set to convene for the first time in dog’s years to announce Kim Jong-un’s ascendancy to the NK throne and Bam Bam’s official “retirement” from the scene, a la Fidel Castro?

Yet more important to our purpose is the why all of this is happening now.

Can it all really be this simple?! Is the hardline recalcitrant pygmy dictator having anxiety attacks as he flits like a hummingbird between Pyongyang and Beijing aboard his special armed choo-choo train? Can the DPRK be coming apart at the seams? Better yet: are we witnessing history in the making on the Korean peninsula?

Let’s examine the issues…

The Cheonan Sinking:

On March 26, 2010, someone — or, rather, something — sank the South Korean navy corvette Cheonan in open South Korean territorial waters. The UN hastily appointed a commission of inquiry which laid the blame squarely on Kim’s tiny shoulders — regardless of whether a rogue faction of his generals were responsible for the sinking.

The Russians appear to doubt the veracity of the commission’s claims and have gone on record denying North Korean involvement in the naval tragedy which lead to forty-six maritime deaths. Naturally, the North Koreans forcefully deny the report’s findings, demanding to see a hardcopy of the report which the Blue House is reluctant to pony up. For now, the incident remains at a sweaty tense standstill. Everyone is on tenterhooks, especially Bam Bam Malone.

Recently, the US and their ROK allies have buddied up on seaborne exercises in what appears to be a prelude to a second “Korean War,” which has Kim and his court fearing for their mortal lives. If push comes to shove, are the North Koreans well-provisioned enough to resist and disrupt a northward thrust by a combined US/South Korean naval and land force?

The Cheonan fiasco has so far proved nothing but a crippling embarrassment to Kim Jong-il. Moreover, it has his Chinese comrades-in-arms biting their long nails to the quick realizing that if hostilities were to break out again on the peninsula, their nation’s economic plans and superpower aspirations are in danger of being disrupted.

If Kim is indeed in China right now as we speak — his second highly irregular “secret” visit in three months — this can only mean one surefire thing: the Chinese are taking the US/ROK military threat very seriously and they don’t trust Kim has the sanity nor the intelligence to navigate the rocky shoals of what’s sure to come over the next few weeks (or less?).

Kim Jong-un’s Long-Awaited Succession:

A succession, I add, which is hardly assured come September, given the dreadfully tenuous hold Jong-un has upon DPRK’s military strata.

Kim likely dragged along his youngest on this most recent “secret” Chinese visit to formally introduce the Chinese Central Committee to his country’s next supreme leader. The Chinese, for their part, will likely use this golden opportunity to reassure the Kims of their continued commitment to financial and diplomatic support to weather this current diplomatic crisis despite Pyongyang’s seeming efforts to do everything in its power to aggravate Beijing and stick it fulsomely to the Chinese leadership. It must be noted that the North Koreans hate getting schooled by Beijing. Despite it with a vengeance, in fact, even if they know it’s a devil they know well and reluctantly acknowledge as their lifeline.

Kim’s “secret” visit was likely planned during his previous visit back in May, custom-tailored as an open show by the Chinese to signal to the rogue elements of North Korea’s military that if they harbor coup-y thoughts against Jong-un following his succession (or in the event of Bam Bam’s sudden croaking), the Chinese won’t let the incident pass unchecked.

The KWP All-Party Congress:

All of this is seemingly coming to a head in advance of the summit next month. Efforts are being made to shore up support for the astonishingly inexperienced Jong-un, reassuring him that, in essence, he has a Big Brother bully backing him up in case things get all uppity in the North Korean capital come September/October.

Releasing Aijalon Mahli Gomes now:

With Gomes’ Friday release in the wake of Carter’s Pyongyang milk run, there are no longer any American citizens locked away in DPRK prisons for illegally crossing North Korean frontiers and no flies in the ointment straining US-DPRK non-relations. The slate now cleared for the North Koreans to rejoin the on-again, off-again 6-Party talks and return to the denuclearization table.

Without zero moral debts to the Americans stemming from the detainments of Euna Lee, Laura Ling, Aijalon Mahli Gomes, or Robert Park, the lone stumbling block impeding a peaceful settlement of the Cheonan incident has now been decidedly eliminated. Hence Kim’s China visit.

So are there going to be instructions from the Chinese again?

Can all this be so lickety-split?

The skeptic in me doesn’t want to gobble the floating oily Kim chum so easily.

I mean, that’s it?

• invite Carter to Pyongyang for the photo op and baby kisses (he was supposed to have been there to see Lee and Ling released, but a last-minute snag had Bill Clinton there instead)?
• release the near-suicidal Gomes and fly him back with the former President to great fanfare and grab-assing?
• schlep Kim Jong-un to the next four-eyed meeting with Hu Jintao for the official Chinese sign off on the succession, declaring to the rest of the world that North Korea is fully-prepared to go nuke-free?

And all because of a the Cheonan‘s untimely sinking? All this because of some ape-like saber rattling in South Korean waters off the coast of North Korea, brandishing the allied US/ROK fleets of might?

Can Kim be really this scared of what the future holds for his own father’s “Paradise on Earth?”

The Equalizer:

Kim has proven again and again that he’s willing to gamble the entire (Kim) farm on a single “kamikaze”-like bet.

That he’s perfectly prepared to imperil his entire population to bitter starvation, place his army on a perpetual war-footing, and threaten to bring calamity down upon the heads of the entire region by aiming one of his purported uranium-tipped warheads at Seoul, Japan, or worse (the existence of which hasn’t been independently verified by the IAEA).

I witness all of these events on the news ticker today and my “North Korea-watching” mind sudden contrives umpteen different contingency scenarios the Dear Leader might have cooking in the back of his soggy noodle, all carefully rehearsed and orchestrated to achieve maximum bang for the buck and PR sizzle.

Can we be witnessing history-in-the-making? A straightforward Bam Bam mea culpa begging for forgiveness?

Has Kim suddenly realized:

• the frailty of his addled physical condition,
• the inability of his chosen heir to rule if he passes, and
• the determination of both the US and the South Koreans to witness the dismantlement of his dictatorship, even at the cost of a small naval skirmish that will likely result in several hundreds of military casualities?

It goes without saying that veteran North Korea watchers typically demand slightly more convincing proof that this isn’t another one of Kim’s little shams in advance of some down-home September Pyongyang pageantry. Ach…

Welcome home, Aijalon. Welcome home in any event.