Clueless on Korea
THE MEETING Friday between President Bush and South Korea's President Roh Moo-hyun was an occasion for fence-mending, for overcoming what Roh afterward called ''differences between Korea and the United States surrounding the North Korea nuclear issue." The US-South Korea alliance would not be in need of mending, however, if Bush and his advisers had not splintered the fence.
The view of the Bush administration is that South Korea has been too soft on its northern neighbor. Although some South Koreans may have become blasé about the prospect of the North possessing nuclear weapons, the strains in South Korea's relations with Washington are not caused by the South's insouciance. They were caused by the refusal of administration hard-liners to remove whatever fissile material and nuclear weapons the North may have in the only way possible: by offering Pyongyang the security guarantees and economic benefits the North wants in exchange for freezing and eventually dismantling its nuclear weapons program.
Bush has had five years to start bargaining in earnest with the Stalinist regime of Kim Jong Il. Instead he has blustered pointlessly about refusing to reward bad behavior, and his advisers have touted the three rounds of six-party talks in Beijing as an improvement on Bill Clinton's bilateral diplomacy with North Korea -- as if the six-party talks could somehow produce a deal without Washington putting an offer on the table that the North might accept.
Former secretary of state Colin Powell was careful not to insult Kim Jong Il. He knew there is no feasible military option to accomplish the nuclear disarmament of North Korea, and that China opposes UN Security Council sanctions on Pyongyang.
Over the last two months, however, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have derided Kim Jong Il in public and implied a readiness to use military force against the North. And those hints were backed up with a deployment of F-117 Stealth fighters and Aegis cruisers with cruise missiles to the region. These provocative measures were taken just as Chinese intermediaries were trying to persuade the North to return to Beijing for a new round of the six-party talks.
If Bush goes on making threats and refusing to offer incentives for a deal with Pyongyang, South Korea and the rest of Asia may logically conclude that the Americans don't want a deal and are not reliable guarantors of Asian security. South Korea's President Roh may have been too discreet to say as much to Bush, but if Bush does not soon make North Korea a credible offer suited to produce a phased dismantling of the North's nuclear program, leaders in Seoul and other Asian capitals will draw their own conclusions.
