"Pyongyang is cooperating with Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, whose leading members are South Korea, the United States and Japan. KEDO has reached an agreement on the provision of the light-water nuclear reactors by 2003, and, in return, North Korea has frozen its nuclear program. South Korea, which has promised to bear the lion's share of the reactor project cost estimated at US$4.5 billion, is asking the United States to put up at least a symbolic amount. The US administration, however, has said it can make no contribution to the construction cost as Congress has not appropriated the necessary budget. An official in Seoul, however, said that South Korea cannot drop its demand simply because of domestic problems in the United States. The US Congress has been delaying approval of the cost for the reactor project. South Korean officials said the U.S. refusal to share the reactor cost would make it difficult for them to obtain approval from the National Assembly for the South Korean share. Since the conclusion of the Supply Agreement in December 1995, six related protocols have come into effect and three rounds of expert-level negotiations have produced solid results. The ROK power company, Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO), is the prime contractor for this project and has as its responsibility the design, manufacture, procurement, construction and management of the reactors. On 19 August 1997 KEDO and North Korea held a groundbreaking ceremony to begin construction of two light-water reactors?. North Korea, most of all, has kept its pledge to freeze all of its nuclear facilities, including nuclear reactors and a reprocessing plant. The United States and North Korea have already taken measures to ease their economic embargoes against each other in order to pave the way for future economic exchanges necessary for carrying out the nuclear reactor project. A more imminent issue for the three
I think the left is, generally speaking, locked into one response. Tomorrow will tell if my guess is correct, but here it is: they'll take the position that sure, North Korea has nukes, and (contradicting their earlier position) sure, Saddam has them or nearly so. And there we go beating up on Saddam and not on North Korea. Unfair! Unfair!!
Of course, they'll know as they say it that Bush can call their bluff and reply "OK, you're right, I guess we'll have to intervene there too." The left knows this as well. Their bet will have to be that Bush can't or won't do so, and at the moment that looks like a losing hand.
What will we do? I'm guessing here, too, but it looks like (1) we will intervene in Iraq and we will succeed, and (2) if we do North Korea will do its very best to set a nuke off somewhere to change the rules, otherwise (3) we'll isolate North Korea internationally, attempt to cripple its delivery capacity, and intervene at leisure as we did in Iraq.
[BtD puts away his crystal ball and crosses every digit he possesses...] Of course, it could just as easily turn to poop. And that would be a very, very bad thing.