 North Korea's nuclear genie
UNITED NATIONS Ñ On the verge of likely military action against Iraq to rid that country of weapons of mass destruction, the rogue regime in North Korea seems poised not only to exploit the situation in the Middle East, but to flaunt its capability to produce its own weapons of mass destruction. Kim Jong-ilÕs communist Hermit Kingdom appears poised to unleash the nuclear genie and has test-launched a missile towards Japan literally on the eve of the inauguration of South KoreaÕs new President Roh Moo-hyun. These remain rash and reckless threats to the East Asian region which must be defused quickly through focused and determined diplomacy.
Look at the record. Pyongyang has admitted to enriching uranium, booted out International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, and pulled out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Now North Korea may start reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods producing enough enriched plutonium for five nuclear bombs. This comes on top of already having two atomic bombs from the early 1990Õs. Now a missile launch.
While the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has urgently referred the case of PyongyangÕs proliferation to the UN Security Council, few observers feel that the Council at best, can do more than delay the inevitable or perhaps inadvertently trigger an unintended consequence. The DPRK regime has clearly stated and it views sanctions as an act of war. Moreover, since North Korea is virtually isolated from normal commercial, trade and tourist links, sanctions are near meaningless in the first place and thus needlessly provocative.
The ill-starred 1994 Framework Agreement between the U.S. and North Korea was supposed to stop PyongyangÕs plutonium production but failed to do so. We now face the consequences of trust without serious verification.
Looking beyond the bizarre brinksmanship of Kim Jong-il, North KoreaÕs nuclear weapons proliferation confronts East Asia and the USA with a formidable strategic threatÑdeliberately introducing new instability in East Asia. A nuclear-armed North Korea can blackmail neighboring South Korea and intimidate Japan.
A combination of factors complicate resolving the situation Ñ first and foremost South KoreaÕs new President Roh Moo-hyun has yet to prove his genuine commitment to close political and military ties with Washington. Though the U.S. maintains a Security Treaty with South Korea, and stations 37,000 troops on the divided peninsula, thereÕs a growing, vocal, and some hint state-condoned hostility to the American presence. Indeed the very foundation of South KoreaÕs socio/economic prosperity and military security has been blurred by naivete in SeoulÕs Blue House.
Second, Mainland China long the political comrade of the quaintly titled Democratic PeopleÕs Republic of Korea, while clearly uncomfortable with developments likely has less leeway with the North than may be assumed.
Third, Japan, probably most threatened by the nuclear bombs and missiles which could carry them, may be tempted to develop nuclear weapons of its own, especially in the light of the recent missile launch.
South KoreaÕs once giddily celebrated ÒSunshine PolicyÓ has been clouded over by the gripping realities that Pyongyang was playing South KoreaÕs former President Kim Dae-jung like a fiddle. Moreover SeoulÕs government paid political kickbacks of at least $186 million to Pyongyang to arrange the friendly Sunshine Summit in June 1990.
The Sunshine policy while logically premised to find common ground among ethnic brethren in both sides of the divided Korean nation, failed to take into account the DPRKÕs dour determination to cynically exploit its capitalist cousins in South Korea.
Emotions aside, the Sunshine Policy has created a dangerous misperception concerning the regime in the North and encouraged a corresponding geo-political uncertainty in how to address the threat. North Korea is hardly a normal state player with which one can deal logically.
Secretary of State Colin Powell has promised to restart humanitarian food shipments to North Korea to help ease its mostly self-inflicted famine. Fine. Washington must now also commence a creative and proactive policy to pull Pyongyang back from the brink and roll back the damage already done. Either the long sought multilateral formula (U.S., China, Japan, Russia) or the bilateral U.S./DPRK discussions should start soon to keep PyongyangÕs other nuclear genies in the bottle.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense
issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
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