by Bart Marcols
Fred Fleitz's 'North Korea, Nuclear Brinkmanship, and the Oval Office' shows how decades of diplomatic weakness turned North Korea nuclear—and warns that Iran is following the same path.
Did Iran pose an imminent threat to America? Was the Islamic Republic on the cusp of nuclear breakout? Anyone asking those questions would do well to read the new book by Fred Fleitz, North Korea, Nuclear Brinkmanship, and the Oval Office, a study of another outlaw state that recently achieved nuclear status.
National security expert Fred Fleitz shows how North Korea exploited the globalist approach to nuclear nonproliferation. A thoughtful reader will explore the history for comparisons and contrasts with Iranian tactics. Every reader will come away with a clear understanding of how diplomacy works, and especially how easily American policymakers miscalculate.
Fleitz is well-positioned to research and write this history because he lived much of it and created some of it. He was the chief of staff and executive secretary of the National Security Council (NSC) and spent over 25 years in national security positions with the DIA, CIA, State Department, and as congressional staff. He is currently vice chairman of the American Security Initiative of the America First Policy Institute (AFPI).
Fleitz grabs the reader by the throat: North Korea has nearly 50 nuclear weapons and thousands of missiles capable of hitting the United States because of bungling by presidential administrations of both parties. His timeline shows countless examples of missed opportunities to stop their nuclear development and of transparent North Korean gambits to blackmail the world into accepting yet another step toward nuclearization. If this sounds familiar to Iran watchers, that’s because Iran pursued the same strategy.
There has been a steady pattern. Periods of accommodation and conciliation allowed rapid, irreversible progress toward nuclearization and missile development. Administrations taking hardline positions would slow the progress but never reverse it, and they were roundly criticized by globalists and domestic political opponents. The parallels with Iran are stark: we would not be forced into kinetic action to stop Iranian nuclearization if we collectively had learned the lessons of North Korea.
The story of North Korea’s march to nuclear weapons is a depressing exposé of the Deep State, with the machinations and hubris so common in the foreign affairs establishment. Foreign Service officers are famously resistant to policy direction from elected or appointed officials because they think they’re smarter than anyone else in the room. Fleitz details the efforts of careerists to downplay the threat of North Korean nuclear weapons and defy successive administrations’ containment policies. Unfortunately, the careerists triumphed, and Pyongyang succeeded in its nuclear march.
The hubris of the career service, however, pales next to that of former President Jimmy Carter. Carter’s efforts advanced North Korea’s nuclear program farther in one weekend than in any five-year period selected at random, and it was President Clinton who let it happen.
The Clinton administration had a habit of using private, “Track II” diplomatic efforts that sidestepped the foreign policy apparatus. North Korea had invited Carter several times to mediate. The State Department rejected the idea, fearing that Carter would freelance.
President Clinton eventually overrode the objections of his advisors and agreed to send Carter. He announced that Carter was going as a private citizen, with no authority to represent the US government or to negotiate any deal. But two days into his visit, Carter did exactly that. He agreed to a framework that included concessions the US had never seriously considered.
To make matters worse, Carter didn’t even brief the administration. He went on CNN, announced to the world that he had averted a war, and warned the administration not to interfere! Carter’s arrogant gesture “cut the legs out from under the Clinton administration’s efforts” (p. 35) and resulted in one of the most destructive arms control agreements in history, the Agreed Framework.
The Agreed Framework bought North Korea several years of nuclear development with only token international oversight. James Schlesinger, who had served as CIA director, Energy Secretary and Defense Secretary, called the Agreed Framework “a negotiated surrender” by the US to North Korean nuclear ambitions.
As a result of the Agreed Framework, America and the allies gave North Korea two light water reactors and billions of dollars’ worth of fuel oil over the next several years in exchange for Pyongyang’s agreement not to build two nuclear reactors and to surrender spent fuel rods. The fuel rods were never surrendered. This was much like the deals negotiated with Iran over the years: empty promises with no real oversight or enforcement mechanism.
The agreement was presented as an executive agreement rather than a treaty because the administration knew it would never be ratified by the Senate. Even the name of the agreement was deceptive. In a linguistic sleight of hand that would later become famous as a Clintonian trademark, it was called the Agreed Framework rather than a Framework Agreement. Calling it an “Agreement” would have marked it clearly as a treaty and triggered treaty ratification requirements.
Twenty years later, the Obama administration did something similar with the JCPOA, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which gave similar (unratifiable) concessions to Iran. In an unprecedented legislative maneuver, the Senate never ratified it. Again, it was not called a treaty or an agreement, but just a “Plan of Action.” Obama followed the same pattern with Iran that Clinton had with North Korea.
North Korea, Nuclear Brinkmanship, and the Oval Office is quite readable. Fleitz pulls no punches in telling the story, but he does not try to bias the reader against any American political faction. He simply tells the truth. He was there, and he gives the reader a clear view of how bureaucratic battles are fought, won, and lost. He covers both the internal Washington bureaucratic battles and the diplomatic struggles.
This book should be required reading for every policymaker and analyst in Washington. It offers a rare opportunity to see the entire foreign policy apparatus at work. The lessons could be applied to every policy discussion. It is especially relevant to this moment because we are seeing a very similar story unfold in Iran, and we know how the North Korea story ends.
It is a sober warning; I hope our nation heeds it.
Bart Marcols was the principal deputy assistant secretary of energy for
international affairs during the George W. Bush administration. Marcois
also served as a career foreign service officer with the State
Department.
Source: https://amgreatness.com/2026/05/20/did-we-really-have-to-attack-iran-history-lessons-from-north-korea/
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