The nuclear regime in place since the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) took effect in 1970 is broken and needs to be fixed, the world's highest-ranking nuclear official told a half-full Memorial Auditorium in a wide-ranging lecture about the future of nuclear energy and weapons yesterday afternoon.

"We have a dysfunctional system -- system that cannot endure," said Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). "We're reaching the fork in the road. Events in the last few years have made it clear that we need to change course."

The big news from ElBaradei's speech was his support for American entreaties to Iran. But the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize recipient also commented on North Korea, India, Pakistan, Iraq, terrorism, disarmament and the future of nuclear energy.

He said there are probably eight current nuclear states, excluding North Korea. He worried aloud that countries which can currently produce nuclear energy peacefully are only six months away from developing nuclear weapons for military purposes.

"Acquiring the technology to enrich uranium or reprocess uranium basically is the key to develop nuclear weapons as we have seen in Asia and Iran," he said. "They are virtually weapons states because in six months time if they decide for security reasons to develop their own weapon, they are there."

Iraq

While not a household name, ElBaradei was a prominent figure in the news as the lead weapons inspector in Iraq during the run-up to the 2003 American invasion. He said at the time that he could not find evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, but he would not conclude that there were no weapons in the country or that Saddam Hussein did not have a program.

ElBaradei asked for more time to complete inspections, but the Bush administration declined his request and decided to invade. The U.S. never found the nuclear and biological material that some had promised existed.

"Luckily...well I'm not sure luckily...we were proven right that there was no nuclear or any weapon of mass destruction in Iraq," he said. "But I hope that all of us have learned from the Iraq experience that we cannot just jump the gun. You have to be absolutely sure of the facts."

India

ElBaradei surprised observers when he supported the U.S. agreement with India earlier this year, which allowed the country to continue developing nuclear weapons and energy. He said the agreement with India did not endorse its proliferation activities but was indicative of the kind of outside-the-box thinking the international community needs when considering the spread of nuclear weapons and material.

"The end result is India coming closer and working with the rest of the world," he said. "It is not a perfect agreement, but it has a lot of advantages. From the safety, security and nonproliferation perspective, I see that agreement as a win-win situation."

Pakistan

Pakistan developed nuclear weapons as a response to India. Some have criticized Pakistan for its poor stewardship and control of the bomb, pointing out that weapons were almost fired during a skirmish over the disputed Kashmir region.

AQ Kahn, a senior nuclear scientist who helped Pakistan join the exclusive nuclear club, was caught selling compact discs and other information about bombs to several other countries.

"How much damage was done in the process we don't know," ElBaradei said.

The release of this nuclear material demonstrates the need for a "more robust verification system," he said, adding that Pakistan has come closer to the international community in recent years.

North Korea

Kim Jong Il expelled all IAEA inspectors in Dec. 2002, withdrew from the NPT in Jan. 2003 and announced in February 2005 that his military had a nuclear deterrent.

"North Korea is still a major problem," ElBaradei said. "We don't talk about it enough, but North Korea is declaring right now that they have a nuclear weapon. And the longer that they continue to be in that status, the more it is accepted in the collective conscious. This would be terrible because it will have a lot of negative ramifications in South Korea and Japan."

ElBaradei said ongoing negotiations are an important development but more needs to be done.

"What we see with the current six-party talks should have taken place years ago," he said.

Nuclear Proliferation

ElBaradei stressed that he understands the value of nuclear power, which produces much of the developed world's energy. Reducing its use would create more dependence on greenhouse gas-creating fossil fuels, he said.

"We need to use nuclear energy responsibly to maximize benefit and minimize risk," he said.

He said his "number one nightmare scenario" is a terrorist group acquiring nuclear technology since terrorists are not deterred by the possibility of reprisal.

In the post-Cold War world, ElBaradei said he could see no justification for the U.S. and Russia to maintain their nuclear arsenals on ready alert to fire with thirty minutes notice. He called on America to lead by example and continue to disarm its nuclear stockpile.

"Rather than pass judgment, I'd definitely like to say the U.S. should do more in leading by example in terms of nuclear disarmament," he said.

In September 2005, ElBaradei was reappointed to a third term as director general of IAEA. The United States had considered holding up his nomination but dropped its objections under pressure from European allies, who admire the former law professor from New York University.

Diplomat to the Core

The Egyptian native's sometimes broken English was interspersed with self-corrections and careful legalese nuance. ElBaradei answered questions posed by Political Science Prof. Scott Sagan, the director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation.

When Sagan made bold pronouncements about different country's nuclear activities, including the United States' "colossal failure" when North Korea violated the NPT, ElBaradei seemed careful not to point fingers, play the blame game or make enemies. Nonetheless, for a senior United Nations official, his speech was notably blunt.

"There's no international public servant whose integrity and work I admire more than yours," Sagan told ElBaradei.

Accompanied by his wife, ElBaradei spent the day at the University visiting with faculty and students. He spoke at a lunch sponsored by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and traveled to Sagan's home for a dinner with invited guests. He left the area at 8:30 p.m.

Iran has climbed to No. 1 on the Washington crisis hit parade. The question of how to stop Iran's nuclear program has unleashed a torrent of punditry. Advocates of diplomacy and a military strike spar on television and in op-ed pages.

Iran's nuclear ambitions deserve our attention. But even by the most alarmist estimates, Iran is years away from being able to build a nuclear warhead.

Meanwhile, over in Northeast Asia, North Korea now has enough fissile material for five to seven weapons and is quietly churning out enough plutonium to build at least one warhead a year, according to rough intelligence estimates. More ominously, work is moving ahead on a new reactor that could potentially produce enough separated plutonium for up to 10 weapons a year.

Somehow this danger prompts no sense of urgency in Washington. After a promising breakthrough last September, the six-party talks to halt the program have lapsed into a stalemate that is close to total collapse.

The Bush administration seems unconcerned. Diplomacy has ground to a halt. The North Koreans refuse to return to the six-party talks. The White House has barred its chief negotiator from talking directly with them, despite Pyongyang's desire to meet and the urging of our six-party partners.

Administration officials have recently floated a report that they are considering a new initiative to negotiate a peace treaty with North Korea. This is a smoke-screen to conceal an empty North Korea policy. According to administration officials, the peace treaty idea has been kicking around for months without going anywhere. South Korean officials tell me that they have been waiting, so far in vain, for any serious detailed discussion of this proposal.

It is the president himself who opposes direct negotiations with Pyongyang, over anything, including a peace treaty. He sees direct talks with North Korea or Iran as an act of weakness. "Somehow,'' he said last month, "the world ends up turning the tables on us.''

In reality, the administration is content to pursue a strategy of going after North Korean counterfeit currency and production of amphetamines and cigarettes, hoping to cut off the flow of funds from these activities. According to administration officials, Under Secretary of State Robert Joseph, the driving force behind this policy, gleefully talks about ``turning out the lights'' in Pyongyang.

Administration officials claim they are drying up slush funds that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il uses to buy the loyalty of his subordinates. Some even suggest this could trigger a coup against Kim, with the Chinese pulling the strings.

But American intelligence experts who monitor North Korea closely see little evidence to support the conclusion that North Korea is being brought to its knees. Even if the measures are drawing blood, it is self-delusional to believe that this will bring down a regime that has already proven it is willing to starve its own population to stay in power.

The administration seems intent as well on pressing China and South Korea to curb their trade and investment with the North. The administration's special envoy on human rights in North Korea, Jay Lefkowitz, seems to spend most of his time attacking the South for setting up an industrial park in Kaesong in the North. He portrays it as exploiting slave labor. The South Koreans defend it as a vehicle to bring capitalism into the communist North.

The Bush administration's combination of attempted coercion and diplomatic freeze has only two visible effects so far.

First, it lends credence to North Korean claims that the United States, contrary to the joint statement issued last September, is still intent on overthrowing their regime.

Second, it undermines gains made by allowing chief envoy Christopher Hill to hold direct talks with his North Korean counterparts. That demonstrated a flexibility and confidence that disarmed critics, particularly in South Korea, and isolated the North. It strengthened coordination with China and South Korea, the two players with the most leverage over the North.

Now officials in both those capitals again question American readiness to seriously negotiate. Beijing and Seoul are even more convinced that pushing market reforms is the only route to bring the North to give up its nuclear option. Next month former South Korean President Kim Dae Jung will revisit his historic summit with the North Korean leader in 2000.

This growing gap with our allies and partners is deadly. Even if we wanted to opt for coercion, the United States can't do so alone. For that reason, it is urgent that the United States regains the diplomatic upper hand.

President Bush could hardly have picked a more critical time to host China's President Hu Jintao at the White House.

A flare-up in troubled waters between South Korea and Japan, faltering trilateral cooperation among the US, Japan, and South Korea, and the failure to persuade North Korea to come close to terms on its nuclear-weapons program all make China a pivotal player -- while raising questions about US strength and influence in the region.

"The United States can play a more profound role in stabilizing the region," says Moon Jung In, international relations professor at Yonsei University in Seoul. "China may be happy to see what's happening."

While the United States tries to persuade China both to reduce its yawning trade surplus with the US and get North Korea to return to six-party talks, a potentially explosive quarrel between South Korea and Japan is frustrating Washington's efforts to join its two northeast Asian allies in common cause on the nuclear issue.

"High-ranking officials of the South Korean government have been talking about Korean-US cooperation rather than trilateral cooperation," says Kim Sung Han, director of North American studies at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, affiliated with South Korea's Foreign Ministry.

"Trilateral cooperation is vital to resolving the North Korean problem," he says.

The tendency in Korea is to blame Japan for somehow wishing to assert its own role in the region, reminding both Koreans and Chinese of the history of Japanese imperialism in Asia, culminating in the conquest of much of the Chinese mainland and 35 years of colonial rule over the Korean peninsula.

Who lays claim to islands?

Memories of that history have leaped into the headlines as a result of a stand-off midway between Korea and Japan in what Koreans call the East Sea and the much of the rest of the world knows as the Sea of Japan.

The focal point is a cluster of 34 islets, basically uninhabitable, that both Korea and Japan claim as part of their national territory.

Korea calls the cluster "Dokdo," or "Solitary Island," while Japan calls it "Takeshima," or "Bamboo Island," and Japan also wants to give Japanese names to undersea rock formations surrounding the islands, basically volcanic rock thrust up from the sea.

The issue, simmering for years, reached a boiling point this week when Japan said it was sending two survey vessels to chart the waters around the islands, held by a garrison of Korean troops seen on Korean television manning anti-aircraft weapons and machine-guns as if to stave off enemy invasion.

Eager to prove his fearlessness in the face of the Japanese, South Korea's President Roh Moo-Hyun has ordered 18 patrol boats to form a blockade against the survey vessels.

"Some people are claiming territorial rights to former colonies that were once acquired through war and aggression," he told Christian leaders at a breakfast Thursday. Not just "good will," he said, as if preparing for war, but "wisdom and courage" were needed in such a crisis.

Shinzo Abe, Japanese government spokes-man, says the vessels are going there in defiance of a pledge of "stern action" by Korea's foreign minister, Ban Ki Moon, against any "provocation" by Japan.

Mr. Kim, of the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, accuses Mr. Abe, an outspoken conservative who aspires to succeed Junichiro Koizumi as Japan's prime minister, of playing to the right-wing in refusing to address Korean sensitivities.

"Shinzo Abe has his own agenda," says Kim. "The Japanese are trying to increase their own role in the area of security. This is sending conflicting messages."

The sense here is that the US could rein in Japan but is reluctant to do so while cooperating closely with Japan on North Korea.

"The United States has been rather silent on these issues," says Kim Tae Hwan, research professor at Yonsei University. "Koreans have been very uncomfortable with the Japanese posture of aligning with the United States. Japan seems to disregard expectations from Korea."

While playing into the hands of China, the standoff over the islands also comes at an opportune moment in terms of South Korea's policy of rapprochement with North Korea.

Ministerial talks between North and South

South Korea's unification minister, Lee Jong Seok, goes to Pyongyang Friday for the first ministerial-level talks between North and South Korea in five months. He and his North Korean opposite number will have no trouble agreeing on the need to fend off what North Korea has already denounced as a "shameless" attempt at expansion.

It's a "very clear win-win" for both North and South Korea, says David Kang, a professor at Stanford University's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. In the process, he says, the ruckus at sea "makes it look a lot as if Korea and China are cooperating more since they're both upset by Japan's moves."

Mr. Kang sees the standoff as "a distraction" that probably will not have "a fundamental effect on North-South Korean relations," but adds to the sense that six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons are not likely to go anywhere.

"The US doesn't expect to make any progress on six-party talks," says Kang. "Nobody has a face-saving way out."

The visit of China's President Hu Jintao to the United States this week is yet another opportunity for chatter about the "Chinese threat.'' In the lead-up to his arrival, we have heard rising voices from Congress and from the administration on everything from China's currency manipulation and piracy of intellectual property to its military buildup.

Do not be deceived. There is no real appetite in either Washington or Beijing for confrontation over any of these issues, much less a serious exploration of the challenge that China presents to American global leadership.

Neither government can afford an escalation of tensions. Economically, we are too intertwined. Strip away the packaging on the $200 billion trade deficit with China and you will find American companies running global assembly lines that begin in Ohio, pass through Malaysia, and end up in southern China.

Strategically, the United States is painfully dependent on China to try to cope with the greatest security challenge in northeast Asia: North Korea's nuclear program.

Beijing is wedded to its doctrine of "China's peaceful rise.'' First formulated three years ago, it aims to keep things calm with the United States and most of its neighbors, buying time to manage the tightrope act of continuing high growth while preserving domestic stability.

In any case, Washington is too bogged down in the Middle East to do more than bark now and then about China.

"At the strategic level, the United States is really focused like a laser on the Middle East,'' and the Chinese like it that way, said Asian security expert Kurt Campbell. "They appreciate the fact that with the U.S. attention focused elsewhere, it allows China to play a larger role in Asia as a whole,'' he told a gathering last week at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Typically, while Washington is focused on Hu's visit, the Chinese defense minister is in the midst of an unprecedented Asian tour that will take him to North and South Korea and to Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam. China's prime minister has just finished a swing through Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Cambodia.

In my own travels through Asia recently, from South Korea and Japan in the northeast down to Singapore, Vietnam and Hong Kong in Southeast Asia, I found a stunning growth in China's influence. The question of how to deal with China's rise is high on every agenda.

Everywhere people are looking over their shoulder, worried about China's burgeoning strength and presence. They are equally fearful that the United States is abandoning the field to China. But they also don't want to choose between these two powers.

That is even true in Japan, where the popular media and politicians are full of talk about the Chinese threat. But look a little closer and you will also find a growing counter-movement, particularly in elite policy circles, warning against becoming separated from the rest of Asia. The battle for succession to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who is stepping down in the fall, is now being shaped around this issue.

The China-Japan rivalry tends to reveal the more muscular side of China's "peaceful rise,'' one that Americans rarely glimpse. In Vietnam, senior foreign policy officials recounted what happened when the Japanese came courting to gain Vietnam's backing for a resolution to give them permanent membership in the U.N. Security Council, a key goal of Japan's foreign policy. Japan is Vietnam's largest aid donor and a major source of foreign investment.

China and Vietnam have a long and stormy history as neighbors, including wars that go back centuries and -- more recently -- a brief invasion in 1979 that ended in defeat for the Chinese. Relations these days are relatively good, however, fed by growing trade, heavily in China's favor.

Hu, in his role as leader of the Chinese Communist Party, sent a special envoy to talk to the leadership of the ruling Vietnamese Communist Party. Sometimes, a Vietnamese official told me, the Chinese can be very indirect. Not this time. The message was simple: "Don't do it!'' The ``or else'' was left unspoken.

The Vietnamese compromised, supporting Japan's membership but refusing to co-sponsor the resolution. China was not pleased, but apparently accepted it.

For the Vietnamese, a senior official explained, they must engage in a "lot of fine balancing.'' Vietnam "can't stop engaging China'' but wants to make sure China becomes a "predictable'' power.

In Washington, when the cloud of rhetoric clears, that formula pretty much sums up the reality of U.S.-China relations, too.

As part of its ongoing series of "Studies of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center", Shorenstein APARC announces two major new titles on the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the genealogy, politics, and legacy of ethnic nationalism in Korea.

The first, The Chinese Cultural Revolution as History, edited by Joseph W. Esherick, Paul G. Pickowicz, and Andrew G. Walder, shows how the Cultural Revolution was experienced by ordinary Chinese at the base of urban and rural society. The second title, by Shorenstein APARC director Gi-Wook Shin, examines the blood-based notion of Korean identity that has come to override other forms of identity in the modern era.

Both books are available for purchase from the Stanford University Press website, through the links given below.