Review U.S. policy toward North Korea(ditch SK and Japan, restart appeasement?)

WP ^ | 11/22/10 | Robert Carlin and John W. Lewis

[TigerLikesRooster]

Review U.S. policy toward North Korea

By Robert Carlin and John W. Lewis

Monday, November 22, 2010;

While the United States has stood aside, hoping time and circumstances would force North Korea to accede to demands for denuclearization, the North has forged ahead with its own plans. Near-universal skepticism greeted Pyongyang's announcement last year that it intended to build a light-water reactor and perfect enrichment technology to fuel it. Not two weeks ago, while visiting the nuclear center at Yongbyon during a four-day trip to North Korea, we saw that the North had begun construction of a light-water reactor that could generate 25 to 30 megawatts of electric power.

Even more important, we were taken to see a small, industrial-scale centrifuge-based uranium enrichment plant. The facility - which has more than 2,000 centrifuges - appeared well-built. It looked to contain modern equipment. The North Koreans were short on details but told us that the centrifuges were not P1 models. They said that the site was recently finished and that it was operating (a fact we could not verify from where we stood). It was meant to produce low-enriched uranium to fuel the reactor they have yet to complete, they said. Efforts to obtain light-water reactors from abroad for much-needed electricity had failed, they emphasized, so they had no choice but to make their own.

News of the North's program will spark critics to warn that negotiations have proved worthless and that only increased international pressure can produce results. But those very arguments helped put us in this policy dilemma. Debates over whether U.S. policy or North Korean actions are to blame can wait. What is needed, right away, is a thorough review of the past 16 years of engagement with Pyongyang,

[TigerLikesRooster]

After years of half-hearted sanctions and several bouts of appeasement fever(delisting from Terror Sponsor list, reinstating their bank accounts at Macau,) and only two years of earnest sanction, now they are calling for appeasement again.

I am sure they will do everything to punish SK or Japan should they decide to nuclear. Then we will have interesting spectacle: imposing economic sanction to SK and Japan, while giving economic aid to NK.

[TigerLikesRooster]

P!

[blueplum]

how about we just blow the reactor site off the planet and be done with it?

[Does so]

The day after the November 2nd election, Governor Barbour said,

"Our enemies no longer fear us".

[The Comedian]

"Nuclear Terror" ping.

Low volume (I hope) ping list covering atomic/nuclear/thermonuclear terrifying events and discussions.

FReepmail me if you want on or off The Comedian's "Nuclear Terror" ping list...

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I am sure they will do everything to punish SK or Japan should they decide to nuclear.

The obvious result of abandoning SK and Japan by the U.S. would be that they would soon go nuclear. They must have both already planned for that contingency. Both are industrially competent countries that do not want to be in thrall to that tinpot Stalin. It might be better for everyone if they did go nuclear, we could stop this pointless charade and the Chinese would reap the whirlwind they sowed.

[Whenifhow]

Dispatch: Koreas Refocusing Policy Postures

http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20101118_dispatch_koreas_refocusing_policy_postures?utm_source=GJourney&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=101118&utm_content=watchvideo&elq=0869587f5e4c4603945fb3eb91541794

[BobP]

When the foreign occupier employed the phrase "fundamentally transforming America" two years ago, that's precisely what he meant. Zer0 has no intention of going quietly.