An unwelcome guest

Jimmy Carter and three other ex-heads of state may be regretting their unfruitful trips to Pyongyang and Seoul last week.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il didn't give them an "audience" leaving just an oft-repeated message, just before their departure at that. Nor did Kim's South Korean counterpart, who never liked the idea of "third-party" mediation from the start.
All this had been somewhat foreseen since Washington made it clear that Carter was not traveling on behalf of the U.S. government. A day after the former U.S. President conveyed Pyongyang's willingness for both bilateral and multilateral talks, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for the North to mend ties with the South first (by accepting Seoul's preconditions).
Some U.S. hard-liners minced no words in ridiculing their former leader as a shameful "spokesman of Kim Jong-il" and chided he is up to "more mischief."
Despite, or because of, these criticisms of his journey, most regretful and disappointing for Carter might be his failure to meet the North Korean leader one on one. One can't see much reason for Kim's repeated refusal to speak face to face with the former American leader, following an abortive meet last August, considering the dire situation facing his country.
Kim of course must have known Carter's visit couldn't be anything more than a personal mission, from the responses of both Washington and Seoul. But Kim should have at least explained the situation and position of the communist regime on major issues, using his visit as a major opportunity for good publicity. Kim's father, North Korean founder Kim Il-sung, went as far as to defuse the first nuclear crisis through the same U.S. visitor in 1994.
That Kim Jong-il didn't do so might reflect the son is a far worse, less caring leader than the father, and the former would not, or cannot, dissolve his nuclear arsenal at least for the moment, unlike 17 years ago when Pyongyang was just a fledgling or would-be nuclear power.
And this means the current crisis could be far more dangerous than the previous one, calling for the need for more active negotiations if not engagement. As always the Lee Myung-bak administration was mired in a petty game of one-upmanship, downplaying the mission of four elder leaders and setting up walls to block potential ripple effects beforehand.
It would be easy for both Koreas to neglect Carter, as the American hawks do, as just a naive idealist who wants to either engrave an indelible legacy or even make up for his less than perfect presidency with post-retirement activities throughout the world.
Yet we can also see the better sides of this octogenarian Nobel Peace Prize laureate and his co-travelers, if we believe in the time-honored truth that humans get wiser and less selfish, if somewhat slower in realistic calculations, as they age. Especially noteworthy in this regard were their appeals for humanitarian aid to starving North Koreans, including the children, women and aged citizens.
At Camp David in 1978 the then incumbent President Carter managed to broker a historic Middle East peace deal between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, with an appeal, "Don't you want our descendants to live in peace?" At a news conference here Thursday, Carter also said, "??? I just hope that South and North Korean brothers by blood would lead better lives."
We Koreans have long attributed foreign invasion and intervention to most of our national tragedies. The rude undiplomatic treatment of senior foreign mediators by both Seoul and Pyongyang shows the fingers should be directed to none other than ourselves.
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