Iraq & North Korean timelines converge

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See the Sol Sanders Archive By Sol Sanders SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

Unfortunately for American policymakers the timelines of the crises over Iraq and North Korea are converging.

Pyongyang is exploiting the postponement of an Iraq resolution Ñ whether with a military campaign or a last-minute dethronement of Sadaam Hussein through voluntary exile or a military coup by his generals.

Kim Il Jong may be bluffing with what looks like resuming nuclear weapons production. [We have learned the pariahs shrewdly exploit some of our high tech surveillance: Osama Bin Laden apparently got us off his scent by assigning his digital telephone to a cohort to carry off in another direction. Is Kim ÒperformingÓ for our satellites at the Yongbyon nuclear reprocessing facility? One official said it was "unclear" what all the activity really was about.] That game would presumably be played out in the three or four months Washington estimates it would take him to actually get plutonium production underway again, always with the threat North Korea would work with international terrorists.

Kim appears to have abandoned tactics of playing his adversaries [and ostensible allies China and Russia] against one another. South KoreaÕs former intelligence chief, Lim Dong-won Ñ said to have maintained contact with North Korean intelligence when he was forced out by South Korean parliamentary critics and took up a role as special adviser to President Kim Dae Jung Ñ was insulted and sent packing on a negotiating trip to Pyongyang. Japanese efforts at some sort of negotiating contact have equally been rebuffed. Pyongyang could have been expected to continue their earlier successful exploitation of the obvious differences among the three allies and WashingtonÕs difficulties in coordinating any restraint on North Korea with PyongyangÕs major ally, Beijing, and Moscow, attempting to play a largely low card hand.

Instead Kim appears to be going for broke, demanding direct negotiations with the U.S., with preconditions Ñ a ÒnonaggressionÓ pact Ñ while throwing out a continuing deluge of inflammatory propaganda.

Unlike Sadaam, however, if Kim is bluffing, it is from a much stronger hand. His forward deployment against Greater Seoul [half of South KoreaÕs population] could wreak havoc even with the most expert and successful American effort to ÒsurgicallyÓ eliminate his nuclear weapons. [North Korean nuclear activity is widely dispersed.]

Sadaam does not yet have nuclear weapons that American intelligence already assigns in small numbers to Kim. The Iraqi dictator might try to use bacteriological or chemical weapons if the U.S. strikes, but the betting is his military are not ready to go down with this kind of scenario and resultant war crimes trials.

But the continuing falderal over whether Iraq has breached its agreement with the UN Security Council to disarm is bringing the two crises closer to each other. Some U.S. strategists hope to bring the North Korean violation of its international commitments to the Security Council as a way of using economic pressure on North Korea, staggering under its collapsing economy with famine and an energy crisis. Under Secretary of State Bolton said the Chinese Ñ North KoreaÕs major source of aid and its only real ally Ñ had agreed to go the UN route, apparently in an effort to avoid their own bilateral showdown with the North Koreans and the possibility of a split among BeijingÕs leadership still sorting out a succession struggle.

ParisÕ maneuvers to use the UN in the Iraq crisis Ñ its only way to enhance its diminished role in international decision-making Ñ are dragging out the process. It may well end with France joining the U.S. and Britain, a growing number of EU members, reluctant Turkey and Mideast allies, in a showdown with Sadaam. France [particularly its oil and business interests] does not want to be excluded from a Òpost-IraqÓ settlement. And Sec. of State Powell Feb. 5.will give France [and Russia and China] the opportunity to shift position again when he presents WashingtonÕs further evidence Iraq has tricked the Security Council.

Meanwhile, Washington has floated the idea of resolving the North Korean problem through involving five permanent Security Council members Ñ the U.S., Russia, China, France and Britain Ñ plus the two Koreas, the European Union, Japan and Australia. The International Atomic Energy Agency has set a Feb. 12 emergency meeting to refer the issue to the Security Council. And although Seoul continues to oppose UN sanctions against North Korea, Washington would hope to bring the world community into line using that major weapon against North KoreaÕs tottering economy. Some movement on South KoreaÕs position could be forthcoming when President-elect RohÕs personal emissary arrives in Washington in early February. Japan, in effect, has already halted aid to North Korea.

But as happened repeatedly during The Cold War [Soviet repression of the 1956 Hungarian revolution and the Suez Crisis], Pyongyang continues to exploit the dual crisis and the UN process.