Today’s Kerry Policy on North Korea

Rebecca has posted the newest permutation of Kerry’s North Korea policy on NKZone. It has attracted the usual mix of comments, including the usual ratio of scary ones that appear to have been texted in from Phish concerts.

If Kerry scared you before when he talked about carrying on with one-on-one AND five-on-one talks and paying all kinds of blackmail, Kerry’s statement today contained some encouraging contact with reality, such as, “The North Koreans have made it clear to the world – and to the terrorists – that they are open for business and will sell to the highest bidder,” and, “[A]ny agreement must have rigorous verification and lead to complete and irreversible elimination of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.” Of course, it wouldn’t be Kerry without the obligatory ‘Nam slap (“shape of the table”). Overall, though, the Wednesday John Kerry grasps the reality of North Korea much better than the Tuesday John Kerry. So in the final analysis, how comforting is that?

For those of us concerned about North Korea as a human rights issue, I’d like to hear more about what “the full range of issues of concern to us and our allies” means.

Rebecca’s analysis is dead-on. Six-way talks are obviously not easy when the coutries’ interests differ so much. The wispy goal for which we seem to be reaching is a deal that various neighboring countries can’t openly subvert for their own selfish reasons. It’s questionable whether any of them are trustworthy, not to mention the question of trusting North Korea itself. At what point, one wonders, will these talks become a sham to show that we made the effort to negotiate?

In the end, the sticking point will be verification. We can’t afford a deal without it, and North Korea will never agree to it. How can you verify an agreement with a country that keeps 10% of its people in concentration camps–yet denies those camps even exist–or which has hundreds of secret underground facilities? To what extent are North Korea’s nuke programs directly connected to his slave labor system, given the evidence that they test their chem and bio weapons on prisoners? The Dear Cheater will never give us the access we need to really verify a deal.

Proponents of another deal don’t deny these fatal problems, mainly because they can’t. They admit that we are in a situation without any good solutions–never mind who got us there–but that diplomacy is the one that’s less bad than the rest. Of course, any fool with a letter of credentials and the strength to lift a champagne glass can create the appearance of effective diplomacy without solving anything. That about sums up what Clinton, Carter, Richardson, Albright, and Pritchard accomplished. If that didn’t make us any safer before–here, we must face the fact that North Korea lies pathologically–how would things be different this time? So far, diplomacy has only made North Korea more dangerous by lulling us to inaction during eight years of false security. This suggests that diplomacy a worse option than some would have us believe.

Thus far, I have presumed that there is more to Bush’s NK policy than the public knows. Perhaps that presumption isn’t unreasonable with diplomatic and military questions. The problem with a policy you can’t see or understand is that you can’t defend it, either. I’m honest enough to admit that I’m predisposed to do that. I’ve let myself be encouraged by some of Bush’s statements about the concentration camps and “loathing” Kim Jong-Il, and absent any evidence of real action, I still credit him with standing up to incredible pressure in refusing to make another sham deal and pay more Dane geld. The best I can say for today’s version of the Kerry policy is that it doesn’t seem much worse. At least Rodong Shinmun probably won’t endorse it. In the end, however, neither candidate has really offered up any specific plan. As with Iraq, there aren’t many differences in their stated policies. The real question is which of the candidates–Bush or Kerry–really intends to do what he says, and what each of them really intends to do but ISN’T saying.

My prediction is that within a year, perhaps two, we will hear that the United States has given up on fruitless and pointless diplomacy with its mendacious partner in Pyongyang and the rest of the clever assortment of allies, ex-allies, and “strategic partners.” This does not preclude the continuation of talks for appearance’s sake, of course. It does mean that we may catch a glimpse of what our real North Korea policy might be. I suspect that when the real policy is revealed, it will be based on a recognition that the problem isn’t negotiating positions, partners, or table shapes–it’s Kim Jong-Il himself. Solve the Kim Jong-Il problem and all the other problems (nukes, South Korea, human rights) are replaced by new, but more manageable ones (South Korea’s next IMF bailout, Chinese pathos about “infectious” democracy on its border, possible loose nukes and WMD, prosecuting crimes against humanity, pacifying a psychologically scarred people).

If our leadership can see that much–and it’s still a big “if”–can it see how to end the Kim Jong-Il crisis without starting Korean War II? Whether that is possible will depend on the courage and desperation of the North Korean people, and on our willingness to help them.