The downside to the North Korean nuke deal?
While nearly everyone is greeting news of the North Korean nuclear deal with caution, there's speculation about a secret deal-within-the-deal that could be cause for outright alarm. This deal is between factions within the Bush administration, and it has to do with Iran.
The story from Steve Clemons at The Washington Note:
It seems that one of the reasons why the U.S. ignored a serious Iran proposal for comprehensive negotiations leading to normalization in March/April 2003 was that Secretary of State Powell and his staff worried that moving forward on an Iran effort would so antagonize Cheney that they would not get agreement from the White House to push forward on the fragile deal-making getting the North Korea-focused Six Party Talks going.
In other words, Powell and Co. — in addition to Cheney's team — quashed the Iran possibilities to do North Korea.
One hopes today that [Assistant Secretary of State] Chris Hill has not succeeded in securing a positive arrangement in North Korea in some sort of quid pro quo that State will acquiesce to Cheney's desire for military action against Iran.
Given the new Secretary of State's history of getting steamrollered by the Vice President, this is entirely plausible.
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