For the 1,002nd Time, Secretary Rice, We Are Not Giving Up Our Nukes.

At what point will we admit that the North Koreans have repeatedly repudiated any intention of disarming?

North Korea threatened Tuesday to bolster its “nuclear armed force,” saying the United States was not yet ready to drop its “hostile policy” towards the communist country.  Washington and Pyongyang face “a grave political challenge” on denuclearizing the Korean peninsula and end their decades-long hostility, the North’s state newspaper Minju Joson said in a commentary.

“What is crucial here is that the U.S. should completely abandon its hostile policy. But the U.S. is not yet prepared to make a strategic decision,” the commentary said.

“As we have stressed several times, our nuclear armed force is a self- defensive measure to protect the security of our country and people against maneuvers by hostile forces to stifle the DPRK,” it said, referring to the North’s official acronym.  “Therefore, the stronger U.S. military threats and schemes to invade us are, the more our republic will keep strengthening its powerful self-defensive deterrence. That is our right.”  [AFP]

Just talk.  Mere words.  Blustering.  Tis nothing.  So why should be give more credence to  promises they make to Chris Hill than to  official written statements they make in  official publications?  How on earth are we supposed to know when they’re lying and when they aren’t?  Or should we consider  all of their statements to be equally subject to  being dropped down the memory hole?  I tend to watch their actions more carefully:

North Korea and its five dialogue partners at disarmament talks are sharply divided over the concept of the next phase of the agreed-upon denuclearization process, South Korea’s top nuclear envoy said Tuesday.

Kim Sook said that the six nations could not move on to the substance of the final step in the three-tier process in their latest round of negotiations in Beijing earlier this month because of the differences. Other participants are South Korea, the U.S., China, Russia, and Japan.  [Yonhap]

Congress will go into  recess on August 8th, almost certainly without putting the brakes to the State Department’s lifting of sanctions.  Knowing this, the North Koreans realize they’re in the clear.  From this point to November, our nation’s and the region’s attention will be on the Olympics and the election.  Expect absolutely no additional substantive progress from the North Koreans now, except in the exceedingly unlikely event Congress passes a “snap-back” provision that would automatically reimpose sanctions by a date certain if the North Koreans don’t cooperate.

That will not happen, and this administration will end having thrown away most of its leverage over the North Koreans for virtually no tangible gains at all, and having  appeased those responsible for the  worst human rights atrocities anywhere on earth today.  What a disgraceful legacy.