North Korea Gives Up Its Nukes....No It Doesn't

Oh, those wacky NKComms!

Last week North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il insisted on Wednesday that the U.S. honor ex-President Clinton's promise to give them a nuclear reactor in exchange for giving up their nuclear weapons program.

Today it was reported that the North Koreans abruptly dropped that demand and agreed to give up their nukes unconditionally:

North Korea pledged to drop its nuclear weapons development and rejoin international arms treaties in a unanimous agreement Monday at six-party arms talks. The agreement was the first-ever joint statement after more than two years of negotiations.

The North "promised to drop all nuclear weapons and current nuclear programs and to get back to the (Nuclear) Nonproliferation Treaty as soon as possible and to accept inspections" by the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to the agreement by the six countries at the talks.

"All six parties emphasized that to realize the inspectable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is the target of the six-party talks," the statement said.

Suddenly the champagne...well, the corks weren't popping, but the bubbly was at least being put on ice:

George Bush needed a big win on the international stage, and this surely qualifies. He has stuck to his strategy of using multilateral negotiations instead of bilateral talks with Pyongyang, the strategy that produced the last failed agreement....The agreement should allow the US to focus much more attention on Iran, once a compliance team gets on the ground in North Korea. We will also find out how good our intelligence on Kim's nukes have been, and that might give us an idea about how we can improve it for Iran. More importantly, it gives the Bush Administration a boost in credibility for negotiating for non-proliferation, just when the EU-3 has utterly failed with Iran to get an agreement. Look for the Bush Administration to leverage this win to take over the Iranian stalemate and push it towards the UN.

Other sources were a bit less sanguine, if not outright skeptical. Me, I was all set to make a wisecrack about the NKComms having found perfect hiding places for all their nukes, or having just sent the last warhead over the Yalu River for safekeeping. Surely the dozen-year inspections circle jerk in Iraq should have taught us the folly of international weapons inspections. And that equation didn't include a (near) superpower patron just next store propping up Saddam Hussein, and using him for its own ends, either.

But I was spared the need for sardonic jokes by this fresh (within the last four hours) development. I hope you're sitting down:

North Korea said Tuesday it would not dismantle its nuclear weapons program until the United States first provides an atomic energy reactor, casting doubt on its commitment to a breakthrough agreement reached at international arms
talks....

"This is not the agreement that they signed and we'll give them some time to reflect on the agreement they signed," U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in New York, where he was with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at meetings of the U.N. Security Council....

"We will return to the NPT and sign the safeguards agreement with the IAEA and comply with it immediately upon the U.S. provision of LWRs, a basis of confidence-building to us," the North's Foreign Ministry said in the statement, carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.

"The U.S. should not even dream of the issue of (North Korea's) dismantlement of its nuclear deterrent before providing LWRs," the North said.

I don't know about you, but I'm getting a kick out of the NKComms. It's like "Dear Leader" Kim decides which direction he's going to go on these talks each day by consulting his magic eight-ball. One day he blusters, the next day he makes a major concession, the next day he totally welshes on it. Tomorrow he'll be back to demanding bilateral talks with the Bush Administration. Next week he'll be insisting that Condi Rice is trying to squeeze out of his belly button. Hey, the magic eight ball never lies....

I'm not the only one who thinks the very idea of negotiating with this crazy thug, whatever the format, is a foolish waste of time. Probably the only reason we are is because these "six-power talks" are really a handicap match, since Russia and the ChiComms are firmly in Pyongyang's camp, and South Korea is neutral at best and useless in any case. Only Japan is truly on our side. If that equation tipped in our direction, we could be, shall we say, a lot more "direct" with our "negotiating points." As it is we're trying to keep Beijing tied into the process so that they'll have at least something to lose if their crazoid client slips its leash and does something "mentally irregular."

It's still a position of weakness, though, and the ChiComms know it best of all, just as they know that we're withdrawing our troops from the Korean peninsula and lack the military resources in the Western Pacific to have any realistic chance of stopping a Red Chinese grab at Taiwan. North Korea is just one more pawn they're using to keep us tied down and stymied while they maneuver other pieces elsewhere on the chessboard.

Sometimes diplomacy can be used as an effective weapon. Most times it is what powers resort to when they lack the strength to pursue their objectives more directly.

George Bush is the Elmer Fudd in this act to Kim jong-Il's Bugs Bunny.

But at least we'll get some hearty guffaws before Kim's nukes start raining from the sky.