For foreign policy buffs and connoisseurs, the Bush administration has done an uncanny job of satiating your interests. Whether uprooting countries in the Middle East to mold them haphazardly into democracies, destroying decades-old relationships with foreign allies or threatening Iran to comply with nuclear arms agreements, America has extended its policy tentacles far and beyond its borders. Yet, the Bush administration continues to negligently ignore our gravest foreign security threat: North Korea.
Late last week, North Korea announced that it had produced a number of nuclear weapons. This brazen declaration was a clear and stunning violation of North Korea’s promises to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the global community that it would refrain from creating a nuclear arsenal. However, the Bush administration was nowhere near incredulous. Quietly, it acknowledged that North Korea had extracted enough plutonium in the last two years for about a half a dozen nuclear weapons while the United States sat apathetically on its haunches.
President Bush has made it clear that he has no intentions of conducting bilateral negotiations with North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong Il. Instead, Bush prefers to conduct multilateral talks involving Russia, Japan, South Korea, China and the U.S. His reasoning? Direct negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea have led to innumerable failures and missteps.
While Bush has repeatedly demonstrated his ignorance of history in deciding foreign policy forays (see the comparison between Vietnam and Iraq), bilateral discussions have actually worked to deter North Korea from processing nuclear weapons.
In 1994, President Bill Clinton, working with North Korea and its representatives, created the Agreed Framework. This understanding demanded that North Korea comply with all international nuclear non-proliferation agreements and eventually dispose of all spent nuclear fuel already produced. In exchange, North Korea would receive two light-water nuclear reactors, which create electricity, economic aid and 500,000 tons of heavy oil fuel in order to offset the loss of its nuclear power. Both would be paid for in full by other parties.
While Clinton was the recipient of multiple political attacks for his supposed naivety in negotiating with a maniacal dictator, during his administration not one single atomic weapon was created by North Korea. Yet, Bush repeatedly calls bilateral talks infeasible and problematic.
An economically isolated and impoverished country, North Korea makes a large amount of its money in arms and narcotics trafficking. According to Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker, many of these arms have ended up in the hands of Pakistanis who, in return, have advised the North Korean government in creating nuclear armaments. Moreover, portions of Pakistan’s security apparatus, that have access to these weapons, have strong ties to Islamic fundamentalist organizations such as al Qaeda.
So what does this all mean? Though North Korea may not directly attack the United States in the near future, its sale of arms to members of terrorist organizations bent on the destruction of America is disturbing and troubling. Certainly North Korea would like nothing more than having a group like Al Qaeda destroy more American lives. But is there a solution?
Neighboring two Asian democracies in Japan and South Korea, some North Koreans have experienced the fruits of democracy by covertly traveling to these countries. Technological products created by China, including cell phones and radios, have made their way across the border, providing North Koreans a glimpse of the benefits of innovation and creativity. Perhaps by emphasizing capitalism and free trade, rather than brute military force, North Koreans will begin to waver in their hallucinogenic support for Mr. Il. Working to open the country’s borders, along with our Asian allies, will certainly take time and effort but will be a far more intelligent position than engaging in cat and mouse games with a totalitarian dictator with nothing to lose.
After hearing last week that North Korea possessed nuclear arms, a few of my friends joked about when they would receive their draft cards and where they would end up being deployed. While I laughed initially, the Bush administration’s take on foreign diplomacy is no laughing matter. As the administration continues to sidestep and forsake diplomatic relations with countries like North Korea, draft cards and deployments may not just be a thing of the past.
Josh Moskowitz ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in political science and journalism.
