Korea: when does negotiating leave off and danger grow?

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

The French, as always, have a word for it: deformation professionelle. Translation: distortion engendered by a profession; in plain words, when the craft of a profession erroneously thwarts decision making. A surgeon might, heaven forbid, resort to cutting when other medical approaches might be preferable, a teacher might turn to pedantry [Òthe unseasonable ostentation of learning,Ó as Dr. Johnson defined it] to explain, or a journalist [horrors!] to oversimplify for a better story.

Diplomacy has its professional deformation. Since his expertise is negotiation, the emissary may sometimes lose sight of his missionÕs goal in pursuit of a successful outcome. Often during The Cold War, up against an implacable enemy who rarely gave an inch, the West made concessions because Stalin refused to budge or simply agreed to go on to violate an agreement with no enforcing mechanism. And since a successful negotiation so often involves a compromise, too often the West [the U.S./its partners] shot itself in the foot.

Late August or September apparently will find the U.S. at a negotiating table with its allies Japan and South Korea, ÒhelpmatesÓ China and Russia, and just such a negotiating opponent, North Korea. The arguments ø especially since Pyongyang keeps changing its positions ø are still being honed. However, behind the rhetoric, Pyongyang appears to be asking for 1] a guarantee of the regime against any U.S. military action, and 2] a massive aid program. The U.S. wants 1] elimination of nuclear weapons the regime may now have and any program to build new ones, and 2] an enforceable mechanism that will not only police any agreement in Korea [more than the failed 1993-94 Framework agreement] but also prohibit its sales to third parties.

Among those who believe a negotiated settlement is possible, great stock is taken in what appears a mutuality of interests. North Korea is hovering on bankruptcy and desperately needs aid. No one, it is said, want a nuclear North Korea, including China and Russia. All have an interest in a stable Korean peninsular ø South Korea who fears a collapsing Pyongyang regime might dump an east-German-like burden on its prosperity; Japan, which wants protection from an already North Korean demonstrated ability to send a ÒterrorÓ missile into its territory; China, which also fears a collapsing North Korea and wants to continue to exploit mushrooming high tech imports and investment from South Korea [ÒSouth Korea could be the Hong Kong of North ChinaÓ]; Russia, which wants to demonstrate its pretensions to being a major Eurasian power broker.

But while these arguments present an optimistic picture on the eve of what could be a long [and purposely extended haggling by North Korea], they do not reflect all the realities. The U.S. [and the rest of the world with a shorter memory] has long experience with the nature of the North Korean regime. This is a regime that diverted resources to its military bringing on more than two million deaths from starvation. It is a state that has murdered South Korean cabinet members in another country [Burma], repeatedly sent infiltrating saboteurs and assassins to kill South Korean leaders, has constantly violated the 1950 Korean War armistice, kidnapped South Korean and Japanese citizens. North Korea has sold missiles to pariah states [and to some U.S. allies in the fight against terrorism]. [A missiles plant intercepted enroute in India, apparently destined for Libya, may be one reason Washington is wary of any settlement for TripoliÕs now admitted bombing of the PanAmerican airliner.]

The U.S.Õ experience [in Korea as well as in Iran and Iraq] with the UN International Atomic Energy Agency does not instill confidence that it could police any agreement. There have been hints that the Chinese, interlocutors in getting North Korea to the table, might be along with Russia, a guarantor. But given that the North Koreans owe their missile and nuclear technologies to the former Soviet regime and their present fellow Chinese Communist allies [on whom they now depend for their fragile economic existence] that might beg the question. China has, itself, violated anti-missile proliferation agreements; PeopleÕs Liberation Army affiliated companies have helped sell PyongyangÕs missiles; recently, Beijing permitted Pyongyang to ship missiles across its airspace to customers in the Mideast.

The question remains, then, even if an agreement is reached with North Korea, where is the assurance it will be respected. Some in the Bush Administration are arguing that only by instituting a worldwide squeeze on North KoreaÕs traffic with the outside world can there be any hope for a real settlement. During the coming weeks, probably months, of negotiations, can the U.S. convince its negotiating partners to quarantine Pyongyang, preventing it from transferring missile and nuclear weapons to pariah states ø and even, possibly, to nonstate terrorists? and in the process, show there is no deformation professionelle on the U.S. side of the table?