North Korea, almost completely sealed off from the world, mired in Communist stasis, and forging ahead with a nuclear-weapons program, is a deeply mysterious place. But is its behavior any more mysterious than that of the United States?
Back in February, six-party talks produced an agreement for North Korea to abandon its nuclear-weapons program in exchange for a generous package of foreign aid. January 1, 2008 was the deadline for it to reveal all the details of what it had been up to. But here we are on January 3, and it is evident that North Korea is planning to turn its homework in late, if it ever turns it in at all.
How is the Bush administration reacting to this latest broken promise, one of dozens that dot the five-year history of this latest attempt to persuade Pyongyong to negotiate away its weapons? “It’s unfortunate, but we are going to keep working on this,” are the words uttered by a State Department spokesman in response. Kim Jong Il must be trembling in his boots.
The United States has been engaged in a diplomatic charade, and that is the title of an op-ed in today’s USA Today by Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute, which begins: “Once and for all: Can we please stop pretending that Kim Jong Il is negotiating with us in good faith?”
But this charade is no parlor game. Eberstadt explains what has already transpired and what is at stake in the years ahead:
Viewed without illusion, these vaunted denuclearization talks with North Korea have in practice provided diplomatic cover for Pyongyang to achieve its long-desired status as a nuclear weapons state. And, by the way, any American official who thinks Kim Jong Il wouldn’t dare sell his nuclear wares abroad is off in a dream world.
Connecting the Dots admits to being baffled by American behavior. Is President Bush kicking this dangerous can down the road for a Hillary or Obama or a Huckabee to handle? Back in September, John Bolton courageously dissented from the Bush administration he had only just served to call the continuing American participation in the negotiation charade a “profound mistake.” Unfortunately, he has once again been proved right.
