Paul J. Leaf: Deja Nukes ... The U.S. Must Not Be Fooled Again by North Korea
Paul J. Leaf is an attorney in Los Angeles and a former editor of the Stanford Law Review.
On February 29, the U.S. agreed to provide 240,000 tons of food to North Korea in exchange for its promises to freeze missile tests and uranium enrichment, and to grant international inspectors access to its plutonium production facility at Yongbyon. This deal—the latest in a string of misguided attempts at rapprochement with North Korea—will accomplish little more than to prop up that country’s unsettled new ruler and to incentivize nuclear proliferation.
It was obvious from the agreement’s inception that North Korea would cheat. It has perfected the ploy of offering unverifiable concessions on its nuclear and missile programs in exchange for money, trade, oil, and food, only to renege and keep the aid.
Take the 1994 Agreed Framework. The Clinton administration and its allies agreed to supply North Korea with two light-water nuclear reactors, oil, and security guarantees. In exchange, Pyongyang promised to shut down and dismantle some of its existing nuclear operations, grant inspection rights, remain a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and send its used nuclear fuel rods abroad. But North Korea eventually used the spent fuel rods from its civilian nuclear reactors to develop weaponized plutonium, built secret nuclear facilities, plus it withdrew from the NPT.
Pyongyang used the same tactics against the Bush administration. In September 2005, after years of negotiating through the Six-Party Talks, North Korea agreed to abandon “all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs.” Pyongyang received several promises in return, including security commitments, economic aid, a path to normalized relations with the U.S., and a substantial supply of electricity. North Korea nevertheless detonated its first nuclear weapon in October 2006—a successful manipulation of the aid and time afforded by ongoing negotiations and the complacency created from intermittent, limited inspections of Pyongyang’s known facilities.
Unsurprisingly, the same pattern is already repeating itself in this newest deal...