In the current crisis on the Korean Peninsula the Obama administration is virtually repeating the 2004 Bush playbook, one that derailed a successful diplomatic agreement forged by the Clinton administration to prevent North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons? While the acute tensions of the past month appear to be receding -- all of the parties involved seem to be taking a step back -- the problem is not going to disappear and, unless Washington and its allies re-examine their strategy, another crisis is certain to develop.
A little history.
In the spring of 1994, the Clinton administration came very close to a war with North Korea over Pyongyang's threat to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, expel international inspectors, and extract plutonium from reactor fuel rods. Washington moved to beef up its military in South Korea, and, according to Fred Kaplan in the Washington Monthly, there were plans to bomb the Yongbyon reactor.
Kaplan is Slate Magazine's War Stories columnist and author of "The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War."
"Yet at the same time," writes Kaplan, "Clinton set up a diplomatic back-channel to end the crisis peacefully." Former President Jimmy Carter was sent to the Democratic Peoples' Republic of North Korea (DPRK) and the Agreed Framework pact was signed, allowing the parties to back off without losing face.
In return for shipping their fuel rods out of the country, the U.S., South Korea and Japan agreed to finance two light-water nuclear reactors, normalize diplomatic relations, and supply the DPRK with fuel. The U.S. pledged not to invade the North. "Initially, North Korea kept to its side of the bargain," say Kaplan, "The same cannot be said for our side."
The reactors were never funded and diplomatic relations went into a deep freeze. From North Korea's point of view, it had been stiffed, and it reacted with public bombast and a secret deal with Pakistan to exchange missile technology for centrifuges to make nuclear fuel.
However, the North was still willing to deal, and DPRK leader Kim Jong-il told the Clinton administration that, in exchange for a non-aggression pact, North Korea would agree to shelve its long-range missile program and stop exporting missile technology. North Korea was still adhering to the 1994 agreement not to process its nuclear fuel rods. But time ran out and the incoming Bush administration torpedoed the talks, instead declaring North Korea, along with Iran and Iraq, a member of an "axis of evil."
Nine days after the U.S. Senate passed the Iraq war resolution on Oct. 11, 2002, the White House disavowed the 1994 Agreed Framework, halted fuel supplies, and sharpened the economic embargo the U.S. had imposed on the North since the 1950-53 Korean War. It was hardly a surprise when Pyongyang's reaction was to toss out the arms inspectors, fire up the Yongbyon reactor, and take the fuel rods out of storage.
Kaplan points out, however, that even when Pyongyang withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty in early 2003, the North Koreans "also said they would reverse their actions and retract their declarations if the United States resumed its obligations under the Agreed Framework and signed a non-aggression pledge."
But Bush, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and Vice-President Dick Cheney, banking that increased sanctions would eventually bring down the Kim regime, were not interested in negotiations.
Ignoring North Korea, however, did not sit well with Japan and South Korea. So the White House sent U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly to Pyongyang, where the North Koreans told him they were willing to give up nuclear weapons development in return for a non-aggression pact. Bush, however, dismissed the proposal as "blackmail" and refused to negotiate with the North Koreans unless they first agreed to give up the bomb, a posture disturbingly similar to the one currently being taken by the Obama administration.
But "the bomb" was the only chip the North Koreans had, and giving it up defied logic. Hadn't NATO and the U.S. used the threat of nuclear weapons to checkmate a supposed Soviet invasion of Europe during the Cold War? Wasn't that the rationale behind the Israeli bomb vis-a-vis the Arabs? Pakistan's ace in the hole to keep the vastly superior Indian army at bay? Why would Pyongyang make such an agreement with a country that made no secret of its intention to destabilize the North Korean regime?
North Korea is not a nice place to live and work, but its reputation as a nuclear-armed loony bin is hardly accurate. Every attempt by the North Koreans to sign a non-aggression pact has been either rebuffed or come at a price -- specifically giving up nuclear weapons -- Pyongyang is unwilling to pay without such a pledge. The North is well aware of the fate of the "axis of evil": Iraq was invaded and occupied, and Iran is suffocating under the weight of economic sanctions and facing a possible Israeli or U.S. attack. From North Korea's point of view, the only thing that Iraq and Iran have in common is that neither of them developed nuclear weapons.
Indeed, when the U.S. and NATO overthrew the Gadaffi regime in Libya, a North Korean Foreign Ministry official told the Korean Central News Agency that the war had taught "the international community a grave lesson: the truth that one should have the power to defend peace." Libya had voluntarily given up nuclear weapons research, and the North Koreans were essentially saying, "We told you so."
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