GLOBE EDITORIAL
Feckless in North KoreaJOHN KERRY was absolutely right Sunday when he castigated President Bush for failing to negotiate a deal that would oblige North Korea to freeze and eventually dismantle its nuclear weapons program.
From the beginning of his term, Bush has mishandled the challenge presented by North Korea. In his administration, hard-liners too often prevail in arguments with pragmatists like Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has acknowledged that the 1994 Framework Agreement negotiated during the Clinton administration was working. Powell and the pragmatists also recognize that negotiations with Pyongyang offer the best chance to prevent what Kerry called a "nuclear nightmare." Because rigid ideologues kept Bush from negotiating a bargain to end the nuclear threat, the world now faces a threat that Pyongyang could make seven or eight nuclear weapons and sell one or more to terrorists. The White House said: "Senator Kerry wants to return to the failed policies of the previous administration, where the US was duped." This is wrong on two counts. As Powell acknowledged, the Framework Agreement, under which inspectors were allowed, North Korea's casks of plutonium were sealed, and the reactor in Yongbyon halted, successfully froze the program. And the United States was not duped. Under pressure from conservatives, Clinton was unable to live up to the US part of the Framework Agreement. Then Bush refused to negotiate. The plutonium has been removed from Yongbyon, the inspectors are gone, the reactor is up and running, the North could have eight bombs' worth of plutonium, and Washington worries that the North may be preparing to set off a nuclear test explosion.
Bush is responsible for this peril. Whoever wins in November must negotiate with the North Koreans, offering them the normalization and energy aid they need in return for placing their plutonium under seal and under inspection. To do anything else is to play into the hands of Osama bin Laden. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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