Back in the Axis, Again

National Review Online ^ | October 17 , 2002 11:40 a.m. | Frank Gaffney

[LSUfan]

Timing is everything. Just last week, the committee that doles out Nobel Peace Prizes endorsed Jimmy Carter's penchant for delusional diplomacy with megalomaniacal tyrants. Its acknowledged purpose was not only to honor the former U.S. president but to castigate his incumbent successor, George W. Bush, for the latter's skepticism about such dealings with rogue despots like Saddam Hussein.

Now comes word that the sort of appeasement of dictators favored by Mr. Carter and his admirers in Oslo (and elsewhere) has once again born poisonous fruit: North Korea has continued to pursue a covert nuclear-weapons program some eight years after the former president took it upon himself to visit Pyongyang for the express purpose of dissuading the "Hermit Kingdom" from doing so.

In the months that followed Mr. Carter's intervention, the Clinton administration sought to permanently defuse the crisis by fashioning a multinational "Agreed Framework." The idea was to reward the North with two new nuclear-power reactors, billions in fuel oil, and the prospect of normalized relations in exchange for Pyongyang's reaffirmation — and honoring — of previously assumed obligations to eschew nuclear weapons.

The irony is that the revelation that North Korea had once again cynically said one thing and done the opposite came in the course not of an effort by President Bush to confront — let alone to try to overthrow — the "Axis of Evil" regime in Pyongyang. Rather, it came during a visit by the highest-level emissary yet sent to North Korea by the Bush administration, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly. He was there at the urging of Jimmy Carter, South Korea, Japan, the U.N., and, of course, the State Department.

Evidently Secretary Kelly shared with the North Koreans sufficiently compelling (and presumably highly sensitive) U.S. intelligence about their covert weapons program that they decided to abandon further efforts to dissemble about its existence. The North's deputy foreign minister not only truculently affirmed that his government was still in the nuclear-weapons business; he declared that it had "other, more powerful weapons." An unnamed U.S. official described the apparatchik's attitude as "assertive, aggressive" in declaring the agreed framework to be "nullified."

Incredibly, some inside the Bush administration — and many outside it — are acting as though this confirmation of bad faith offers a basis for further negotiations with and concessions to North Korea. According to this logic, it is progress that Kim Jong-Il is coming clean about his nuclear weapons, like he did recently about his country's abduction and enslaving of Japanese citizens to train spies for use against their country.

Now, President Bush is understandably reluctant either to divert attention from the impending action aimed at eliminating the threat posed by Saddam Hussein or to initiate steps that would precipitate hostilities on two fronts simultaneously. Still, he risks completely undermining the credibility of his effort to address effectively the Axis of Evil — and the role they play in the war on terror — if he embraces suggestions from allies in the region and beyond that the latest revelations justify a redoubling of Carteresque appeasement of North Korea.

Instead, President Bush must agree that North Korea's covert nuclear-weapons program nullifies the agreed framework. While it was a bad idea before now to transfer nuclear-power technology that could actually greatly increase the amount of weapon-usable fuel available to Kim Jong-Il, under present circumstances it would be insane to do so. President Bush's spokesman has already properly indicated that the idea of expanding economic relations with the North cannot be pursued.

For the time being, the United States should return to a policy of containment of North Korea, discouraging its friends like South Korea and Japan from undermining that policy by pursuing their own, ill-advised openings to the North and holding Russia and China accountable for their respective efforts to provide weapons and other life support to Kim Jong-Il's regime.

If this course of action fails to prevent Pyongyang from transferring nuclear-weapons technology as well as ballistic missiles to other rogue states, or if the North engages in other activities that threaten U.S. allies or interests in the region, America may have no choice but to deal with North Korea on a more compressed timetable than we would like. We should be under no illusions, though: As with Saddam Hussein, the danger posed by North Korea's regime and its weapons of mass destruction will only grow over time.

The least those like Jimmy Carter and former Clinton-administration officials — who bear much of the responsibility for allowing Kim Jong-Il's malevolent capabilities to metastasize over the past eight years, even as America's abilities to contend with war on the Korean Peninsula (let alone a second, simultaneous one elsewhere) were allowed to decay — can do is to refrain from making matters worse by insisting that President Bush continue their failed policies.

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy.

[LSUfan]

Gaffney hit a home run with that one...

[adam stevens]

BUMP for bombing these commies!