Suckers ….

THE FULL TEXT OF KCNA’S PENULTIMATE TANTRUM is at the link after this money quote:

The U.S., however, raised all of a sudden an issue of applying an “international standard” to the verification of the nuclear declaration, abusing this agreed point. It pressurized the DPRK to accept such inspection as scouring any place of the DPRK as it pleases to collect samples and measure them.

The “international standard” touted by the U.S. is nothing but “special inspection” which the IAEA called for in the 1990s to infringe upon the sovereignty of the DPRK and caused it to pull out of the NPT in the end.

The U.S. is gravely mistaken if it thinks it can make a house search in the DPRK as it pleases just as it did in Iraq.

The U.S. insistence on the unilateral inspection of the DPRK is a brigandish demand for unilaterally disarming the DPRK …

Everyone take a drink!  

… the other belligerent party, by discarding its commitment to the denuclearization of the whole Korean Peninsula the core of which is to remove the U.S. nuclear threat according to the September 19 joint statement.

The DPRK’s intention to denuclearize the peninsula is to remove the nuclear threat from the Korean nation, not to have a bargaining over the DPRK’s nuclear deterrent.  [KCNA]

I don’t doubt that something Chris Hill told the North Koreans took them by surprise; after all, his negotiating strategy seems to have been based entirely on avoiding disagreements — not only with the North Koreans, but in Washington — through intentional  vagueness.

“NORTH KOREA RENEGES ON NUKES – AGAIN,” says Time’s Bill Powell, who thinks the Bush administration will cave again, this time on verification:

The Chinese have offered a compromise plan on verification that is now under scrutiny in Washington. Though anti-nuclear deal hawks remain in the Bush administration, and are adamantly opposed to meeting in the middle, Pyongyang has a vote, too, and it votes to stop complying. With his time running out, and his desire for a deal with North Korea obvious, most analysts expect another compromise from President Bush. And then – bet on it – watch Kim Jong Il angle for a better deal with whomever the next President is.  [link]

I’ve had a pretty good track record predicting what the North Koreans would do —  ok, uncannily good,  leaving aside the Al Gore thing  —  but not so much predicting that our  own government would  finally grow a pair and stick to principles it had annunciated for years.  The administration may well take advantage of several upcoming opportunities to  cave on verification  while all eyes are on the election.  But does anyone suppose we’ll ever  pry gram one of fissile plutonium from Kim Jong Il’s greasy little digits? 

ONE THING THE STATE DEPARTMENT HASN’T ADMITTED since February 2007, though it’s often been true before:  “This certainly is in violation of their commitments to the six-party framework.   But not to worry:

“We can’t be overly excited by the down in the situation right now because this process does have ups and downs, as you know, so we’re going to continue to work with the parties and take the process forward,” he said. “This is not the first time we have this type of issue come up.”

The spokesman called for the North to do its part under the nuclear deal by “coming up with a verification package as soon as possible,” adding, “We are certainly living up to ours” by having provided the North with 150,000 tons of heavy fuel oil worth about US$92 million.  [Yonhap]

The overwhelming consensus is that Bush won’t denuclearize North Korea and that the North Koreans are  waiting Bush out.  As a stalling tactic, the February 2007 agreement was another North Korean diplomatic  masterpiece, one  that saved them from bankruptcy and likely collapse, and one that also reveals the stubbornness of our collective  diplomatic incompetence.  We failed because we  squandered our chance to negotiate from strength and extract real concessions, real change, and real transparency  from the North.   

Later in the Yonhap piece, Don Oberdorfer is quoted actually suggesting that the U.S. should settle for stopping North Korea’s plutonium production.  Again, the left wing of Washington’s Korea-watching circle implies that we should accept North Korea as a nuclear power, notwithstanding its long track record of crimes against humanity on a scale rivaled only by Pol Pot  since the deaths of Stalin and Hitler. 

Can we assume that this will become accepted U.S. foreign policy doctrine if Obama wins?  (It’s less clear what McCain would do differently, since he probably doesn’t read this blog.)   Candidates tend not to admit as much when they’re trying to sound like tough-minded statesmen, but you could  do an Amish  barn-raising with all of the broken goal-posts our foreign policy elite has tried to set around North Korea.   I can still remember when taking away North Korea’s plutonium was The Goal on which we were supposed to stay focused, to the exclusion of all else.  I can even  remember when, before that, it was getting them to give up their nuclear weapons.  I can even remember a time  when there were Red Lines. 

I’ve concluded that all of those goals were not so much designed to limit the North Koreans, but to  give their proponents the temporary credibility of seeming so have some … until events proved otherwise.