North Korea says it’s going nuclear.
The Kim Jong Il regime has terminated an agreement it made with the US in 1994 “to freeze all nuclear weapons development activity,” in the words of the New York Times. (*) What is not clear is whether North Korea has withdrawn from the entire 1994 agreement or only part of it.
North Korean officials have hinted darkly that they have the bomb. The usual sign that a nation has the bomb is the carrying out of a nuclear bomb test, detected seismically by other nations. No test has been reported. Thus, there is no proof that North Korea has the bomb. On the basis of its admission, however, North Korea must have at least an unfrozen nuclear weapons development program.
This could monkeywrench a UN Security Council resolution on Iraq, because now, some will argue, resolutions are needed on both Iraq and North Korea. Under this line of reasoning, China could use its veto to protect North Korea, thus scuttling an Iraq resolution indirectly. A UN Security Council resolution should not be needed on North Korea, however.
President Bush should work diplomatically to get the North Koreans back on track to a peaceful relationship with South Korea, culminating in an armistice and reunification. North Korea has made commitments under “the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), its International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards agreement, and the Joint North-South Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” in the words of State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. (†) Reminding the North Koreans of their treaty commitments is exactly the right approach. Our approach should be diplomatic.
Another response could be to stop fuel oil shipments to North Korea. (‡) This only makes sense if the North Koreans have revoked the entire 1994 agreement. It is not clear whether they are opening containers of radioactive materials that were sealed since that 1994 agreement. If they are opening the containers, then we’re back to square one, and the US should halt fuel oil shipments.
The regime of Kim Jong Il is less threatening than that of Saddam Hussein. Kim Jong Il does not have the extensive relationships with terrorists that Saddam Hussein has. (§) Nor does Kim Jong Il have a track record of using weapons of mass destruction.
Kim Jong Il may want North Korea to become a major regional power. He must see his possession of a nuclear weapon as putting him in the same category as China, Russia, and the US, especially because regional rivals South Korea and Japan do not have nuclear weapons.
While right-wing commentators launch into a blame-it-all-on-Clinton approach, and in this case, Carter, too, because he helped forge the 1994 agreement, many nuclear reactors promised North Korea have never been delivered. Therefore, it is unlikely that the 1994 agreement helped North Korea’s weapons program.
In retrospect, could more have been done? Yes. President Bush could have continued the Clinton Administration’s policy of pursuing an armistice and reunification of the Korean peninsula. Such an outcome was ripe for the picking when Bush was inaugurated. Instead, Bush changed course 180°. Bush let the possibility of peaceful Korean reunification in 2001 slip through his fingers on the basis of domestic partisan politics—the desire to show Clinton up. How many times must it be said? Partisan politics is the bane of a successful US foreign policy.