> http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000619/pl/usa_rogues_dc_1.html
>
> 19 June 2000
>
> State Department Drops 'Rogue State' Tag
>
> By Jonathan Wright
>
> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iran, Libya and North Korea are rogues no longer,
> the State Department has decided.
>
> Now they're just ``states of concern'', Secretary of State Madeleine
> Albright said in a radio interview.
>
> ``Some of those countries aren't as bad as they used to be. They say:
> 'We've done some stuff so why are you still calling us a rogue state?'''
> one State Department official said.
>
> Or, as State Department spokesman Richard Boucher put it more carefully on
> Monday: ``It's just a recognition that we have seen some evolution in
> different ways in different places, and that we will deal appropriately
> with each one based on the kind of evolution we're seeing.''
>
> Iran, for example, has become more democratic, with presidential and
> parliamentary elections. Libya has handed over the suspects in the
> Lockerbie case for trial and North Korea has declared a moratorium on tests
> of its long-range missiles.
>
> Even Iraq, a hardcore ``rogue state'' under the old description, is now ``a
> state previously known as rogue'', to quote Boucher's jocular formulation.
>
> Albright, speaking on National Public Radio's Diane Rehm show, said: ``We
> are now calling these states 'states of concern' because we are concerned
> about their support for terrorist activities, their development of
> missiles, their desire to disrupt the international system.''
>
> Four Groups Of Nations
>
> The Clinton administration, and especially Albright as ambassador to the
> United Nations, was once an enthusiastic proponents of the ``rogue state''
> theory.
>
> In an April 1994 lecture, she divided the countries of the world into four
> categories -- international good citizens, emerging democracies, rogue
> states and countries where a state hardly exists, such as Somalia and
> Sierra Leone.
>
> She defined a rogue state as one that had no part in the international
> system and that tried to sabotage it. U.S. policy should be to isolate
> them, she added.
>
> For the past year or so, the United States had used the term mainly for
> countries it thought might be working on long-range missiles. This was the
> justification for planning a controversial national defense against their
> missiles.
>
> But experience, especially with the isolated Stalinist state of North
> Korea, has shown that it might be more productive in the long run to engage
> in dialogue.
>
> In the case of Iran, moreover, the United States has been actively seeking
> a dialogue with the government, despite repeated rebuffs from Tehran.
>
> Calling Names Does Not Help
>
> Talks between the United States and North Korea, which have no diplomatic
> relations, have persuaded Pyongyang to freeze its nuclear program, allow
> the United States to inspect suspect sites and suspend the missile tests.
> The talks may have been a factor in persuading North Korean leader Kim
> Jong-il to take part in last week's summit with South Korea.
>
> One U.S. official tied the change in terminology specifically to the case
> of North Korea, one of the countries which the United States calls a state
> sponsor of terrorism.
>
> ``It doesn't help to be calling them rogues one minute and trying to get
> them to be reasonable the next,'' he said.
>
> Boucher said the State Department wanted to move away from putting
> countries in groups and would not be drawn on whether there were ``states
> of concerns'' which were never rogues.
>
> The term ``rogue'' never had any formal status but Albright initially
> included Iraq, Iran, Serbia, Sudan, and North Korea.
>
> Cuba and Syria have been on the U.S. list of ``terrorism sponsors'' but
> were rarely if ever called rogues.
>
> ``The category has outlived its usefulness...but we're not trying to create
> new categories. We're trying to deal with each situation in U.S. interests.
> If we see a development that we think is in U.S. interests, we will
> respond,'' Boucher said.
>
> ``If we're able to encourage them (states of concern) or pressure them or
> otherwise produce changes in their behavior, and therefore change in our
> relationship, we're willing to do that,'' the spokesman added.
>
> Bruce K. Gagnon
> Coordinator
> Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
> PO Box 90083
> Gainesville, FL. 32607
> (352) 337-9274
> http://www.globenet.free-online.co.uk
> globalnet at mindspring.com