Former President Bill Clinton’s quick success in obtaining the release of two American journalists held captive in North Korea highlights the usefulness of the former President. The Washington Post reports that Clinton was able to use his unique network of contacts, not to mention his unique status as both former President and spouse of the Secretary of State, to bridge the diplomatic gap left by continuing U.S. non-recognition of North Korea’s despotic regime.

It is necessary to maintain this diplomatic fiction to maintain U.S. commitments dating back to the Korean War, but I nonetheless disagree with my friend Michael’s belief that embracing an unofficial quasi-diplomatic option like Clinton’s trip somehow telegraphs weakness (though I do not condone those who would use this disagreement as the basis for completely unacceptable abusiveness). Instead, I think it finesses a difficult issue by making it unnecessary to sacrifice the lives of Americans in order to keep in place official U.S. condemnation of the North Korean regime. Yes, the North’s regime will undoubtably use the photo of Clinton for propaganda purposes, but does anyone really believe that everyone outside of North Korea won’t see through that stunt? And wouldn’t the continued holding of American hostages also been used for propaganda anyway? The propaganda concern is not without weight, but I think it is outweighed by the duty to rescue U.S. citizens swept up unintentionally in a Cold War-era diplomatic dance with a murderous dance partner.

As long as they are not empowered to actually negotiate away U.S. interests (as former President Jimmy Carter was prone to do during the Clinton administration), the use of former Presidents as unofficial envoys seems to me an intelligent diplomatic dance move that, while not cost-free, is at least net-beneficial. A similar dance could be used to take advantage of Clinton’s unique stature in Africa, with NATO allies, or even potentially to help deal with the inevitable dance over Iran’s nuclear program. At no point should core U.S. interests be put on the alter of compromise, but we have an unusual tool in Bill Clinton and its just foolish not to use it just so that we can avoid undermining some vaguely macho sense of “strength”.