The Death of an Alliance, Part 24

South Korea’s Minister of Silly Talks, Chung Dong-Young, has opened his mouth again, an occurrence that never seems to end well. This time, he’s left no doubt that South Korea and the United States are much further apart on their positions on North Korean nukes than one would except of nominal allies:

Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said Wednesday North Korea must have the right to use nuclear energy peacefully for agricultural, medical and power-generation purposes.

Chung told the online news site Media Daum the U.S. “says that because North Korea broke the Geneva Accords, said it made nuclear weapons and broke its nuclear freeze, you cannot guarantee North Korea’s peaceful use of nuclear energy, but we think differently.

Chung’s comments come within a day of U.S. President George W. Bush reiterating his opposition to a peaceful North Korean nuclear program.

At this point, we can officially call the six-party talks a failure–ironically, as a direct result of a South Korean government statement. Why? Because the very reason for having these talks in the first place was the fact that North Korea has repeatedly proven itself willing to lie about its “peaceful” intentions for its nuclear programs, which are barely even hooked up to the nation’s electrical grid. Even after signing the NPT, it spent years stalling on the safeguards agreement or obstructing the access of UN, US, and IAEA inspectors.

Why should we assume that the same regime has different intentions now? Because it says so?

If the North keeps its nuclear programs, it’s just a matter of time before it will cheat (I tend to think that time will come just after the next presidential election, which conforms to the 1993 pattern of testing American presidents). In other words, anything short of complete and verifiable denuclearization in North Korea gains us nothing, or far too little to be worth the regime-sustaining aid North Korea will certainly demand in return. The kind of deal Chung has now publicly come out favoring is a deal the United States neither can, should, or would agree to. And because Chung has made his statement publicly, North Korea is less likely than ever to budge on the must-have demand that North Korea actually dismantle its nuclear threat.

Ergo, there will be no deal, thanks to Mr. Peace-in-Our-Time himself.

It’s a perfect example of how excessive yearning for a diplomatic solution can be a fatal impediment to actually reaching one. On the other hand, one could see this as a catalyst for declaring the talks a failure after a newly-entrenched North Korea returns to Beijing as intransigent as ever on August 29th (presuming it shows up at all). In that event, we can go through the pretense of negotiating, walk away in good faith a week or so later, and hasten our move toward more serious matters.

I also wonder if Chung is reneging on any agreements by taking that position in public:

Chung’s ministry sought to play down any conflict with Washington. “Seoul
and Washington understand each other’s position, and are working closely toward
the goal of resolving the nuclear issue,” ministry spokesman Kim Hong-jae said.

So, we can put that one down as a “yes?”