Déjà vu alert: Madeleine Albright's Iran deal excitement extinguished by this flashback reminder

Doug P. | 6:44 PM on April 02, 2015

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright congratulated current Secretary of State John Kerry for reaching a tentative nuke deal with Iran.

Something about this deal that’s “good for” the America and the world rings a bell:

https://twitter.com/KrisinAL/status/583744103118049280

Not so great.

In 1994, the Clinton administration brokered a similar agreement with North Korea (Albright traveled to Pyongyang in 2000 as Secretary of State). It was an agreement that Albright in 2004 admitted North Korea broke:

MR. RUSSERT: You heard the secretary of state say that when the Bush administration took over in 2001, they were told by your administration, the Clinton administration, in terms of North Korea, “There was nothing to worry about.”

MS. ALBRIGHT: I have the highest respect for Secretary Powell and I found that statement, I have to say, somewhat surprising, because we were in the middle of very tough negotiations with the North Koreans. In fact, the reason we were involved in this is that we thought that North Korea was the most dangerous place to deal with. And we were working on limiting their missile technology and dealing with a whole host of issues and when we briefed Secretary Powell and Dr. Rice, we made clear that those negotiations needed to proceed. And I had every sense that Secretary Powell wanted to go on with that, so we never told them everything was all right.

MR. RUSSERT: But didn’t North Korea develop a nuclear bomb on Bill Clinton’s watch?

MS. ALBRIGHT: No, what they were doing, as it turns out, they were cheating. And the reason that you have arms control agreements is you don’t make them with your friends, you make them with your enemies. And it’s the process that is required to hold countries accountable. The worst part that has happened under the agreed framework, there was these fuel rods, and the nuclear program was frozen. Those fuel rods have now been reprocessed, as far as we know, and North Korea has a capability, which at one time might have been two potential nuclear weapons, up to six to eight now, we’re not really clear. But in this period of time when there has not enough action been taken, I think that the threat from North Korea has increased.