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George W.'s Wrong-headed Approach to Korea

There was a time after the end of the Korean War (1950-53) when U.S. policy toward Korea was the defense of South Korea from another invasion from North Korea. Since the late 1980s, if not sooner, the situation has changed drastically. South Korea has far surpassed the economy of North Korea, established its own arms industry and has gained access to modern tanks, aircraft, and artillery. Many think that it has the capacity to defend itself, even without the 37,000 U.S. troops stationed on South Korean soil as a trip-wire to bring the U.S. automatically into any war between North and South Korea. In addition to U.S. troops, the South Korean military is backed up by U.S. nuclear-capable submarines, ships, and aircraft.

In the meanwhile, the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union eliminated North Korea's guarantee against a U.S. nuclear attack and cut off its supply of subsidized oil needed to generate electricity and run its factories. China still supports North Korea's existence as a state, but it also has very active trading and diplomatic relations with South Korea and is unwilling to support any kind of aggressive war by North Korea against South Korea. A series of natural disasters have led to long-term famine as well. As a result, North Korea's formidable military has been converted from an aggressive to a defensive force in the face of U.S. nuclear weapons, which the Bush administration has given every hint of using as a first-strike weapon in a preemptive war.

In the late 1980s the U.S. became alarmed when it began to suspect the North Koreans of developing a nuclear weapons program. In 1994 President Clinton came close to war with North Korea, but Jimmy Carter saved the situation when he visited Pyongyang to talk with Kim Il Sung. Carter's announcement was followed up subsequently by the Agreed Framework of 1994, which froze the rods in the nuclear reactor built at Yongbyon and prevented the conversion of the waste to plutonium in return for guarantees to build two light-water reactors and supply 500,000 tons of heavy oil to North Korea.

The Agreed Framework was achieved because Clinton was willing to negotiate with North Korea and engage in quid-pro-quo negotiations. The result was not total transparency of North Korea's nuclear facilities, but the agreement achieved a freeze on nuclear waste that could have been processed to make plutonium for atomic weapons. Just before the end of the Clinton regime, the United States worked out an informal agreement with Kim Jong Il, the new leader of North Korea, that included the abandonment of the north's long-range missile program. But the lame-duck Clinton failed to sign the agreement and left it to the Bush administration to conclude the deal.

No sooner did George Bush become president than he refused to endorse the progress Clinton had made, criticized Clinton's Agreed Framework as a case of appeasement of North Korean nuclear blackmail, listed North Korea as one of the members of the "Axis of Evil," and announced that he loathed Kim Jong Il, whom the president described as a tyrant who starved his own people. Was it any surprise that the North Koreans interpreted this as a shift of U.S. policy to outright hostility and responded by renouncing the Agreed Framework, removing the rods from their nuclear reactor in preparation for reprocessing, and canceling its membership in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)? George Bush responded by threatening to condemn North Korea before the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for abrogating the terms of the NPT and indicated he'd seek sanctions against the regime -- an act that might have led directly to war.

Later U.S. intelligence uncovered work on enriched uranium for the manufacture of a uranium bomb. North Korea admitted building the project; Pakistan revealed that it was responsible for shipping the technology North Korea employed. Even though it is not clear if this enriched uranium project was done shortly after the Agreed Framework of 1994 or not, the response to that challenge would be to negotiate directly with the north to guarantee a return to membership in the NPT, continuation of the Agreed Framework of 1994, cessation of the enriched uranium bomb project, and secure inspections under the IAEA, including the revelation of the past history of nuclear research that was promised to be revealed as part of the Agreed Framework in 2005. The Bush administration should not have threatened sanctions or a preemptive strike.

Cooler heads seem to have prevailed in the Bush administration when it announced that the U.S. did not have any plans to go to war with North Korea and would settle the North Korea nuclear problem through "negotiations." George Bush, however, defined "negotiations" as a willingness to talk to North Korean representatives but not to discuss any "quid pro quos." Quid pro quo means bargaining, a willingness to offer the other side something in return for something received. Using direct negotiation to obtain a return to NPT, the Agreed Framework, and cessation of both long-range missiles and the enriched uranium bomb project in return for a non-aggression pact, aid, and open commerce would preclude war and destruction and obtain security for North Korea, the U.S., South Korea and surrounding nations. Yet Bush denounced such arrangements as succumbing to North Korean nuclear blackmail, suggesting that the naïve Democrats and Bill Clinton had been taken in. Bush claimed he was continuing to negotiate, but that meant he was only talking to South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia to persuade them to adopt his hard line against the north.

Trading one thing to get another is the very essence of diplomatic negotiation, and to agree to "talk" without agreeing to negotiate seriously indicates that the Bush administration has no intention of negotiating at all, but seems to be postponing the day of reckoning until after the U.S. goes to war against Iraq. He proved it when he rejected the North Korean offer to meet U.S. demands on the nuclear weapons in return for the conclusion of a Non-Aggression Pact between North Korea and the U.S. What better proposal could the U.S. have received if it really wanted to solve the nuclear question peacefully? Bush's rejection of the proposal must have indicated that the U.S. is preparing to use force against the north. In the face of this threat, the only purpose for North Korean nuclear weapons would be as a deterrent against the U.S.

Unfortunately for South Korea, Bush's current policy places not only North Korea, but South Korea as well at risk of the deaths of millions of its people and the massive destruction of property, for I doubt that North Korea will go down without wreaking as much havoc as it can against South Korea. Instead of the U.S. acting as savior and protector of South Korean security, the U.S. under George Bush appears as South Korea's greatest threat. Bush ridiculed President Kim Dae Jung's Sunshine Policy, which was designed to open the path to peaceful resolution of problems with the north. His denunciation of Kim Jong Il only served to block Kim's peace initiatives. The result of Bush's opposition and his hard line on North Korea was to energize a large segment of the South Korean population against the U.S. for endangering the Korean people and to swing the recent presidential election in South Korea to Roh Moo Hyun (No Muhyon); Roh is committed to continuing the Sunshine Policy. If Bush continues his current policy against the North, he might well force South Korea to reconsider its current subordination to U.S. leadership in the conduct of its own foreign affairs.

If, by chance, George Bush does keep his word and does not go to war, he will continue to put enough pressure on the north to cause its collapse because his advisers seem to think that North Korea is so weak its collapse is only a matter of time. I doubt that the north will weaken or crack, and South Korea will not support the pressure. China, Russia, and Japan are also unlikely to go along. George Bush's reckless policy is playing with the lives of the Korean people.