[Nasional-e] Negotiation is the lesser evil

[Ambon]

 Negotiation is the lesser evil
   Nicholas D. Kristof  Wednesday, January 8, 2003



With the 'Great Leader'

NEW YORK While in North Korea years ago, I barged into as many private homes
as possible, and every single one had The Speaker. The Speaker is like a
radio, but permanently on and without a choice of stations. It is the
electronic umbilical cord from the Great Leader, waking citizens up each
morning and putting them to bed each evening with a mix of heroic songs,
denunciations of "the American war-maniacs" and tributes to Kim Jong Il,
"the greatest of great men produced by heaven."
.
(Oops. Now North Koreans are going to wake up to hear The Speaker declare
that even the imperialist reactionary New York Times has hailed the Great
Leader as, quote, the greatest of great men, unquote.) The Speaker is a
reminder that North Korea is like no other country today. It was eerie to
interview groups of North Koreans and then hear them praise Kim Jong Il in
unison, like synchronized robots, a feat of hagiography unmatched except in
Washington when White House aides give interviews.
.
It is also a reason why Washington's North Korea policy seems bound to fail.
Since October the White House has tried to use economic pressure to squeeze
the Great Leader to give up his uranium program. Economic pressure? In a
country so regimented and totalitarian that its leaders yawned through a
famine that killed 2 million people in the 1990s? As one of the few
Americans who have traveled around both North Korea and Iraq, I believe the
problem is far deeper than just a muddle of U.S. priorities. The White
House's champing at the bit to invade Iraq alarms me, but I have to admit
that so far the champing has had an excellent effect: It has put backbone
into the United Nations, returned inspectors to Iraq and made containment of
Iraq a more viable option.
.
On the other hand, the White House North Korea policy is baffling and is
aggravating the crisis.
.
My guess is that President George W. Bush is deferring North Korea until
Iraq is out of the way, and is hoping that Chinese pressure will bring North
Korea around. It won't. China won't squeeze North Korea because it doesn't
want a collapsed neighbor and millions more refugees. Moreover, China's
influence on North Korea has always been wildly exaggerated. North Koreans
speak openly of their contempt for Chinese officials, and Chinese and North
Korean border guards have on occasion even fired at each other. I realized
the strains a decade ago when one North Korean introduced me to another by
saying, "The Chinese government hates Mr. Kristof" - and they both beamed
and pumped my hand warmly. Unless the administration switches gears, here is
what may happen: North Korea will reprocess spent fuel at its Yongbyon
reactor, giving it enough plutonium for five to eight nuclear warheads by
May 1. The North will also resume construction of a much bigger reactor at
Taechon, accelerate its enriched uranium program, possibly drop out of the
Nonproliferation Treaty, and test a Taepodong 2 missile that, in three
stages, could reach New York.
.
In five years, North Korea could have 100 nuclear weapons and be churning
out more like a fast food chef. With nothing else to keep its economy going,
North Korea will peddle them to the highest bidder.
.
This scenario is so horrendous that by late spring the Pentagon will be
preparing options for a military strike on Yongbyon, even though Bush has
sensibly resisted that approach so far because the result could be another
Korean War. And this is, as Colin Powell puts it, "not a crisis"? The only
way out that I can see is to negotiate with North Korea, despite the Bush
administration's legitimate concerns about rewarding bad behavior. The
United States could save face by getting Vladimir Putin to sponsor an
international conference on North Korea, and then working out a deal in
which the Great Leader verifiably gives up his nuclear and long-range
missile programs, while the West offers normalization, trade, Asian
Development Bank loans and pledges of nonaggression.
.
This would be a deeply unsatisfying solution, but it is less unsatisfying
than a nuclear factory peddling bombs, or Korean War II.