It is routine in U.S. foreign policy for a pot not boiling over to
be moved to the back burner. Precisely because the North Korean issue
is not boiling, however, might offer an all-too-rare chance to make
progress with Pyongyang. Over the past several months, the North has
signaled publicly and privately that it is in engagement mode. In
Washington, arguments abound about whether or not this is a stall
tactic or a trick, but we'll never know if we don't move ahead with
serious and sustained probing of the North's position. So long as our
government sticks to an all-or-nothing approach in terms of Pyongyang,
the opportunity to advance vital U.S. security interests in northeast
Asia could be lost.
Underlying Washington's current position are two beliefs, so firmly
held that they approach dogma. The first is that we should wait until
the situation with North Korea breaks in our favor or sanctions force
North Korean leadership to reassess its attachment to nuclear weapons.
A year into the Obama administration, this waiting borders on
self-imposed paralysis even though North Korea remains capable of badly
damaging regional stability as well as U.S. nonproliferation goals. So
instead of positively defining and shaping the realities on the ground,
we have taken shelter behind fixed positions: enforcing U.N. Security
Council sanctions and demanding that the North make progress on
denuclearization at the Six-Party Talks. These may be useful parts of
an overall policy, but they cannot be effective by themselves and must
be handled carefully.
Sanctions will inevitably get in the way of diplomatic progress, and
there needs to be a way to use their loosening--as much as their
tightening--in support of negotiations. Moreover, Washington's
single-minded insistence that the North return to the Six-Party Talks
actually has ceded to Pyongyang a great deal of tactical initiative.
There is nothing the North Koreans love more than leaping over our
heads to a new position just as we think we have them cornered. As
such, in mid-January, they reversed their opposition to talks in the
framework of the September 2005 Six-Party joint statement and have
proposed that talks proceed on all fronts simultaneously.
The second part of Washington's dogma is that there is no sense in
negotiating with Pyongyang because history shows that agreements with
North Korea always fail and the United States ends up snookered. But
the idea that our deals with the North have all been useless is based
on a flawed reading of the record, a lingering misrepresentation of the
accomplishments of the 1994 U.S.-North Korea Agreed Framework. In fact,
the utility of that agreement (which lasted from 1994 until 2002) is
still evident. Without it, North Korea would have produced far more
fissile material and a significantly larger arsenal of nuclear weapons.
Two hulking, unfinished North Korean nuclear reactors testify to its
lasting legacy.
Reinforcing the belief that we don't need to, or shouldn't, pursue
an active policy toward North Korea is the Obama administration's
apparent concern that it will be vulnerable to charges of being "weak"
if it approaches Pyongyang from anything but the toughest position
possible. Thus, on the grounds that the September 2005 joint statement
calls for progress on the North's denuclearization before talks can
begin on replacing the 1953 Korean Armistice with permanent peace
arrangements, Washington rejected out of hand Pyongyang's recent
proposals to move on both issues simultaneously. We may find it
difficult to hold that position because it is neither what the joint
statement actually says nor what some of the other parties (especially
the Chinese) intended.
The fundamental U.S. goal is exactly right: We want North Korea to
denuclearize and to return to the international nuclear
nonproliferation regime. But stating the goal isn't the same as moving
closer to it. To do so, we must accomplish things that can help
stabilize the situation, make it less likely that the strategic threat
from the North will get worse, and begin exploring with Pyongyang a
range of ideas for reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula and in the
region. A couple of mid-term steps could include a halt in nuclear
testing and long-range ballistic missile launches, along with a
complete freeze of the Yongbyon nuclear center, which would involve
further decommissioning and a return of international inspectors.
These interim steps won't "solve" the nuclear problem, but they
aren't beyond what we can accomplish. They will do considerably more to
protect our interests and those of our allies than the current
all-or-nothing policy, which is going nowhere fast.
