Investor's Business Daily, July 16th, 2007
North Korea: The United Nations has confirmed that Pyongyang has shut down its weapons-making nuclear reactor. Those who criticized the Bush strategy, saying it was too harsh, should take note.
From the beginning of the showdown, the White House refused to enter into unilateral talks with the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea. Despite domestic entreaties and demands from Pyongyang that the U.S. speak directly with Kim Jong Il's regime, the administration insisted on multilateral talks.
Smart thinking. Since the DPRK's neighbors have a vested interest in keeping the Korean peninsula nuclear-free, the U.S. should not have the duty to act as the sole policeman, particularly since Kim's primary goal was to needle the U.S. through a nuclear weapons threat. America can't fight everyone else's wars, nor can it play heavy on the behalf of nations that have grown accustomed to relying on U.S. defenses. (Europe, are you listening?)
It also was wise for the administration to take a harder line with communist North Korea than its predecessor in the White House.
Remember, it was Bill Clinton, through the useful idiocy of Jimmy Carter, who fueled the DPRK's nuclear weapons program with the Agreed Framework deal in 1994. In that accord, the administration pledged to give Pyongyang two American-built nuclear reactors for energy and a generous bundle of aid from the U.S. and its allies if Kim would promise to close his nuclear weapons program.
Years later, President Bush insisted that any incentives coming North Korea's way would have to wait until the regime actually began taking real steps toward dismantling its weapons program. The shutting down of the Yongbyon reactor is a promising milestone; but having seen what happened to the 1994 pact, Bush is not going to let Kim have his concessions from the U.S. and his atomic bomb factory, too.
Eventually, Bush is going to have to make sure that Kim not only gives up his capacity to make nuclear weapons, he has to dismantle his stock of atomic bombs, as well. This must be confirmed by multiple parties, the U.S. preferably among them, as Pyongyang works well in the dark. The DPRK, perhaps more than any other country, belongs in the can't-trust-so-darn-well-better-verify category.
As always, the U.S. must be careful with the slippery Kim. This is a man who had no qualms about cheating on the 1994 deal and in fact might have relished making a sitting (Clinton) and an ousted (Carter) U.S. president look foolish. Kim is a merciless dictator who has killed millions of his own people without their deaths ever having weighed on his conscience. Breaking a deal would be as easy as ordering another gourmet meal from his personal chef.
With the six-nation talks resuming this week, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the chief negotiator for the U.S., has a chance to move quickly to finish. But he can't do it so hastily that he neglects the necessary thoroughness or concedes too much. Lives, millions of them, are at stake.
