Post-Gazette Editorial – 10/11/06

This page was last updated on October 15, 2006.

Put to the test / Bush’s nondiplomacy fails on North Korea; Editorial; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; October 11, 2006.

This is the second North Korea-related editorial in four days.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“The North Koreans’ reported nuclear explosion Monday is critical to Northeast Asia and worldwide efforts to restrain nuclear proliferation. It is less important to the United States, and there is no reason for it to become a major issue for either party in the November elections.

“The test explosion, which North Korea had warned a week before that it intended to carry out, puts it on the threshold of the group of countries that possess nuclear arms. These include China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, all of which have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. North Korea signed the treaty, but withdrew from it in 2003. Also possessing nuclear arms are India, Israel and Pakistan, none of which have signed the NPT. Non-nuclear weapons states that have signed the treaty permit inspections of their nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency; nonsignators don’t.

“The risk now is that North Korea’s neighbors, specifically Japan and South Korea, may feel obliged to proceed with their own nuclear weapons programs. No one doubts for a minute that Japan, with the world’s second-largest economy and highly sophisticated technology, and South Korea, in 10th place with comparable skills, could quickly move to produce nuclear weapons. Both have signed the NPT, and yesterday Japan’s prime minister said his country had no intentions of seeking atomic weapons.

“The question for the United States is, could it have prevented the North Koreans from proceeding with a nuclear weapons program? The answer is probably yes. The latest U.S. approach to the problem was to engage North Korea in six-power talks, along with China, Japan, Russia and South Korea. That made sense -- dealing with what was basically a regional problem within a group of the region’s powers.

“But it didn’t work. North Korea continued to insist on direct, bilateral talks with the United States, as well. It had several reasons for that: President Bush’s inclusion of North Korea in the ‘axis of evil’ countries, along with Iran and Iraq; continuing threats against North Korea made by senior administration officials, and the U.S. attack on Iraq that brought about the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime. As a result, Pyongyang wanted a firm pledge from the United States that it did not plan a comparable fate for the Kim Jong Il regime.

“Six-power talks on the nuclear program were fine, but how was the North to know that the United States wouldn’t raise the ante by forcing its government to step down, particularly with 30,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea? For security against that, North Korea wanted high-level talks followed by joint communiques and the like. Unfortunately, the Bush administration continued to refuse and, in the meantime, said North Korea had to give up its nuclear option first.

“Then the nuclear test occurred Monday. The United States is now pursuing economic and other sanctions against North Korea within the U.N. Security Council. If they are passed, China and Russia will make sure their effect is relatively harmless to North Korea. However, further isolation of an already paranoiac North Korean regime serves no purpose.

“What the United States should have done when North Korea threatened its test was to announce a willingness to dispatch Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, or an equally credible representative, to Pyongyang to talk. Countries such as North Korea, Iran and, before the invasion, Iraq, should not have to ‘deserve’ to talk with senior U.S. officials. Diplomatic talks are classically how leadership heads off undesirable events such as nuclear tests.”

[RWC] Rather than address this editorial point by point, I’ll stick to the big picture.

There are two underlying assumptions of the PG position.

First, to accept the PG position that diplomacy can work, you have to assume something other than nuclear weapons are the real endgame for North Korea. That is, you have to assume North Korea doesn’t really want nuclear weapons but is merely using the threat of possessing them as a bargaining chip. That assumption is 100% incorrect. There is absolutely nothing we or anyone else can offer North Korea that would deter them from developing nuclear weapons. On a side note, the same is true of Iran.

Don’t buy the BS that North Korea is worried about the U.S. attacking it. Kim Jong Il knows full well the U.S. has no intention of attacking North Korea. Indeed, we have a history of ignoring North Korean misdeeds going back to at least the Johnson administration. As a reminder, North Korea attacked and captured the USS Pueblo in international waters during January 1968, killing one sailor and taking the 82 surviving crewmembers prisoner for 11 months. The prisoners were tortured during this period and the Pueblo remains in North Korean possession. Other than a bunch of harsh words, we did nothing in response to an act of war.

If we unilaterally disarmed tomorrow, North Korea would still continue its nuclear weapons program.

It’s simple. North Korea wants it all. North Korea wants us to pay blackmail, all while it continues its nuclear weapons program.

Second, you have to assume it’s right to submit to blackmail, as the Clinton administration did in its 1994 agreement with North Korea. Remember, according to the treaty, North Korea wouldn’t build nuclear weapons in return for economic aid, which incredibly included economic and technological aid to build light water nuclear power plants. As we know, North Korea began ignoring their commitments before the ink was dry on the treaty because they never had any intention of keeping those commitments.

Oh yeah, there’s one other reason North Korea began cheating. Even more incredible than helping North Korea build nuclear reactors, the 1994 agreement specifically forbade weapons inspections for a minimum of five years!

Finally, the PG wants us to believe President Bush is responsible for North Korea’s alleged development of a nuke. To accept this ridiculous position, you have to believe North Korea – an impoverished and technologically backward country – went from no nuke program (because of the 1994 agreement) in 2001 to having nukes only 3½ years later in 2004. I’m not that gullible.