Posted on 10/17/2002 12:14:51 PM PDT by Enemy Of The State
Well, wouldn't you know it!
By Marc Erikson
North Korea's Dear Leader Kim Jong-il seems to be in a peculiar ebullient show-and-tell mood. Last month he admitted to a visiting Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that North Korean intelligence agents had indeed kidnapped more than a dozen Japanese citizens, as long suspected. Some time between October 3 and 5 one of Kim's officials confessed to visiting US assistant secretary of state James Kelly that North Korea, in material breach of a 1994 agreement, had an active nuclear-weapons program. So what's next? Kim's professing that he's indeed a major missile-technology proliferator and proud of membership in George W Bush's axis-of-evil threesome?
North Korea's secret nuclear program not only violates a 1994 accord under which the country undertook to dismantle all such work in return for receiving two light-water nuclear reactors; it also is in contravention of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguard agreement, and the Joint North-South Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The US Central Intelligence Agency believes that North Korea has produced enough plutonium for at least one, quite possibly two or three nukes. And, of course, it has the proven ballistic-missile capability to deliver them to Japan, even Alaska. What to do about it all will - among other things - be discussed by James Kelly with South Korea on Saturday and by Kelly and US undersecretary of state for arms control and international security John Bolton with Japan on Sunday and Monday.
What's most curious about the affair is why the United States - and Japan, which was informed by Kelly on his way back from Pyongyang - have waited nearly two weeks before making the Pyongyang story public. The Tokyo side is easy: the US requested secrecy. Moreover, that will have suited Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who is preparing for meetings on October 29-30 in Kuala Lumpur between North Korean and Japanese officials to further the rapprochement process. Japan wants to go ahead with the KL confab and early publicity on the North Korean nuclear violations might have scuttled it.
Washington? Not that difficult either. The Bush administration wanted the Iraq war authorization from Congress signed, sealed and delivered before having to face nasty questions on why it is prepared to continue talking to a nuclear-armed Pyongyang but not to Saddam Hussein, who - at least in plain material capability - would appear to pose a lesser threat.
How reasonable is that approach? This past summer, Bush administration officials spent a good deal of time mapping out a comprehensive approach for improved relations with North Korea. The US is fighting one war against al-Qaeda. Plans were being made for a second one with Iraq. Better by far to keep the Northeast Asian flank calm instead of risking simultaneous confrontation there. Moreover, improved US relations with China, a quasi-ally of North Korea, were seen to offer an opportunity for tackling the issue with Chinese support. The successful Koizumi trip to Pyongyang confirmed that a window of opportunity for neutralizing the Korean front existed.
President Bush will now undoubtedly face any number of questions on his motivation if he pursues the campaign against Saddam Hussein while acquiescing on the Kim Jong-il threat. Acquiesce nonetheless he will - and not unreasonably so. There will be some hollering, but no tangible action. Indeed, there is behind-the-scenes talk in Washington that Kim's owning up to having a weapons program might be viewed as a positive, that the cards are now on the table, that - with Chinese, Japanese and Russian assistance - the threat can be contained, and that serious negotiations to eliminate it can ensue.
Bush has only himself to blame if he now might be called a hypocrite for negotiating with Kim but not Saddam. It was he who lumped them together. But in strategic terms, a Middle East without Saddam is vastly more important than a North Korea without Kim. That won't be said out loud; it's fact nonetheless. It took Washington the better part of two weeks to reach that conclusion. That such a conclusion has in fact been reached will, however, become evident in coming days and weeks.
Posted by Billthedrill to AmericanInTokyo On News/Activism Oct 16 9:19 PM #236 of 326
...Tomorrow will tell if my guess is correct, but here it is: they'll take the position that sure, North Korea has nukes, and (contradicting their earlier position) sure, Saddam has them or nearly so. And there we go beating up on Saddam and not on North Korea. Unfair! Unfair!!
Of course, they'll know as they say it that Bush can call their bluff and reply "OK, you're right, I guess we'll have to intervene there too." The left knows this as well. Their bet will have to be that Bush can't or won't do so, and at the moment that looks like a losing hand...
The libs are sooooo predictable. LOL!
Congressman Billybob
Because when a nation is nuclear equipped, you have to treat it differently. If North Korea has nukes, there's not a whole lot we can do about it right now. We can, however, make sure Saddam does not get them.
Here's the deal: Two or three years from now, will the US be safer if North Korea and Saddam has nukes, or if North Korea has nukes and Saddam is worm food?
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