AFTER years of haggling, North Korea is refusing to allow routine disarmament inspections of its nuclear (weapons) program, leaving the Six-Party Talks, established to denuclearize Pyongyang, in limbo.
Who’s really surprised?
Sure, this will cut off much of North Korea’s gravy train. Most of its Six-Party partners (China, Russia, Japan, South Korea and the United States) would only dole out foreign aid as long as the years of talks showed at least some progress.
And with onset of North Korea’s usually bitter winter, it’ll be tough for the common man. But the communist elite never do without.
North Korea’s crazy-as-a-fox leader, Kim Jong Il, plainly sees good reason to put off intrusive arms-control inspections.
First, Pyongyang’s nuclear-weapons program has been its strongest playing card. Without it, North Korea is little more than an impoverished third-world country. With it, some of the world’s biggest powers sit up and pay attention.
Why give the nukes up? Who cares if a few more poor North Koreans join the famine, from which 2 million have already perished?
Plus, Kim suffered a stroke recently. It’s believed he’s recovering, but he hasn’t been seen in public (except for some pix, probably Photoshopped, in the state-run media).
Even if Kim is still in control of the government, he may not be ready to cut any ground-breaking deals with the “running dog imperialists” – at least until he fully recovers.
Alternately, the other top dogs may be circling for a power struggle. (Some believe the Chinese already have their own candidates in place amongst the Pyongyang elite in case Kim heads for the dust-bin of history anytime soon.)
Or Kim may just be waiting for change in Washington, hoping for a better deal from the Obama team. The new administration will include plenty of Clinton alums – and the Clintonites cut North Korean a generous nuclear deal back in 1994, long on goodies and short on inspections.
(Unfortunately for Kim, the Bushies in 2002 caught him welching on the Clinton deal with a clandestine nuclear-weapons effort. That led to the now-stymied Six-Party approach.)
Kim might even just want some ego-stroking happy snaps with the new US president. The president-elect’s campaign rhetoric hinted that tea with our enemies might be a possibility.
Finally, maybe Kim just doesn’t want to get caught lying again. A rigorous exam by the lab-coat crew might just show that Pyongyang’s recent nuclear declarations were half-baked.
Whatever’s going on, the Bush administration is plainly right to demand verification of any disarmament agreement it reaches with North Korea. How else can you have any chance of preventing cheating – like last time?
Besides increasing the security of our troops and our friends and allies in Asia, it’s also important to prevent nuclear proliferation off the Korean peninsula.
Remember, just over a year ago, the Israelis flattened a Syrian nuclear facility being built by – yes, you guessed it – the North Koreans.
Rolling back the North Korean nuclear program is great – if it’s humanly possible. But containing its spread is equally critical: The folks dying to get their hands on the bomb include Iran and al Qaeda.
Brookes is a Heritage Foundation senior fellow and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense.
peterbrookes@heritage.org