Missing The Point
With all due respect to Donald Gregg and Don Oberdorfer, who wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post, they are missing the point here. They call, quite strenuously, for more dialog with North Korea rather than sanctions.
But the North Koreans are not negotiating.
The issue here is that it is all well and good to call for more talks, it doesn't really work if the people you need to talk to won't sit down with you. If they were negotiating - at all, even with bad intent, you might have a chance to alter outcomes. But the North Koreans have walked away and are not talking.
The only path to success with North Korea is negotiation, which President Bush and others have endorsed on many occasions. What is needed is sustained engagement to persuade Pyongyang to return to the regional talks and cease its confrontational actions — not new sanctions that will make such a course even more difficult.
Pyongyang's ballistic missile tests of July 4 were a provocative mistake that led to unanimous condemnation by the U.N. Security Council and sharp cutbacks in aid from South Korea. The tests especially angered China because of Kim Jong Il's refusal to accept a high-level envoy who was to express China's unhappiness about them. Beijing took the remarkable step of voting to condemn its fraternal neighbor. It slowed down but did not stop its crucial food and energy assistance for fear of creating instability on its border. China is unsympathetic to further U.S. sanctions at this time and most unlikely to follow suit.
Recent U.S. financial sanctions based on North Korea's money-laundering and counterfeiting of U.S. currency have been painful for Pyongyang's free-spending leadership. But neither these sanctions nor the impending comprehensive sanctions are likely to lead to the demise of the 60-year-old North Korean regime or to a positive shift away from its militaristic actions. Instead, the predictable result of new sanctions now is new steps by Pyongyang to prove it will not be intimidated: additional tests of ballistic missiles or an underground nuclear explosion to validate its declaration early last year that it is "a full-fledged nuclear weapons state."
In June 2005 Kim Jong Il told a South Korean emissary that his country possesses nuclear weapons but that it does not need to test them. Semi-official U.S. estimates are that Pyongyang has sufficient nuclear material for six to 12 nuclear weapons, though the status of bomb assembly is unknown. Should Kim's regime be spurred to test such a device, the repercussions of a successful test for the global drive against the spread of nuclear weapons would be great, with especially powerful political and military impact in Northeast Asia. Such an event might prompt extensive new arms programs, possibly including nuclear weapons programs, by South Korea, Japan and Taiwan.
If someone will not talk, now do you get them to come to the table? You have to get their attention and make them realize they need to cooperate. How do you do that?
Sanctions may be the only method.
North Korea | Gaius Tuesday, 5 September , 2006
By beth, Wednesday, 6 September , 2006 @ 12:23 am
This is a problem that I find myselfl wondering about often. Why do the progressives keep insisting on talking to people who refuse to talk to us. It defies common sense.
I think it just makes them feel better to SAY we should have dialog. I think blaming us for the problem makes them feel like they have more control over it.
You can reason with us - you can’t reason with North Korea - or Iran for that matter. That’s a pretty dadgume scary realization.