Saturday, March 15, 2003
Yes, I know, the men and women who make up the president’s foreign policy team are seasoned professionals, with advanced degrees, and decades of military and foreign policy experience. It's hard to imagine how they could get us into this jam. But the facts speak for themselves.For months Korea-watchers have been looking to see whether President Bush would do one of two things--hopefully both.
First, would he agree to direct negotiations with the North Koreans to test their openness to a diplomatic resolution to the crisis? And, secondly, would he clearly mark off some 'red line' the North Koreans should only cross at the risk of war with the United States? The spiraling sense of alarm in the foreign policy community grows from the realization that president refuses to do either because his advisors can't agree what our policy should be.
The picture would be very different if time were on our side rather than North Korea's. But it's not. Every day that goes by, the North Koreans move closer to processing plutonium and making nuclear weapons. If the North Koreans are dead set on building a nuclear arsenal, every day makes our future military task vastly more difficult. On the other hand, if they’re open to a negotiated settlement, every day our future negotiating position gets weaker. Either way, every day that goes by is a bad one for us and a good one for them.
In many ways, this nicely encapsulates the dilemma faced by Washington: the most the U.S. can hope for with resuming dialog with the DPRK is the chance to "test their openness." Failure to talk, however, doesn't accomplish anything at all. Lesser of two evils, anyone?
