Bush
is darkening the
North Korean peace
By
Jonathan
Power
February 26, 2002
LONDON - "Sunshine is dead. Long live the darkness."
Is this what President George Bush would have liked to
have said this week during his visit to Seoul? Even he,
so soon after his "axis of evil" speech, might think that
would be over the top.
Nevertheless, President Kim Dae-jung of South Korea is
clearly fighting tooth and nail to save what remains of
what he calls his "sunshine policy", his ambition to
forge reconciliation with communist North Korea. The
opposition at home has been buoyed by the sounds of jihad
from Washington. The fact that the political pros in the
European Union and the awarders of the Nobel Peace Prize,
who in these matters tend to reflect sophisticated
liberal opinion, have supported "sunshine" all along cuts
no ice in the Bush entourage.
Bush's tactic when he feels he has upset his
interlocutor is to turn on the charm and stress the
positive issues. This was the way to soften the hard
edges whilst on the ground in South Korea. But the damage
had already been done, the primary message sent and the
body language of the Bush entourage is unyielding.
Yet whereas Bush can say he has a policy with
terrorism, or with Afghanistan and is planning a
plausible one for constraining Iraq and, stretching a
point, can persuade himself that he can sanction Iran
into curtailing its nuclear weapons program, there is not
one argument that will bear scrutiny for a policy of
darkness with North Korea.
We have been through this already in 1994 when U.S.
intelligence revealed that North Korea had removed spent
fuel rods from a nuclear reactor, placed them in a
cooling pond and was perhaps about to reprocess the used
uranium to provide plutonium for up to six nuclear
weapons. For good measure the CIA let it be known that
some of its staff members thought that North Korea
already had built a couple of useable nuclear
weapons.
The pressure brought to bear on the Clinton
Administration to bomb North Korea was enormous. As with
Iraq today the argument made was that a rogue nation with
nuclear weapons would threaten America's allies, South
Korea and Japan and sooner or later threaten America
itself. In Kim Il Sung, the paramount leader, North Korea
possessed the harshest and most immoveable of leaders,
one that seemed impervious to advice, even from old
allies like Russia and China. Blessed with a remarkable
cadre of high powered nuclear and rocket scientists Kim
Il Sung seemed to accept that the rest of the country
could go hungry as long as some mythical dignity was
upheld. Yet when Clinton received the Pentagon's advice
on what to do it came with great paragraphs of caution
warning him that 50,000 American soldiers would probably
lose their lives in a war with the North and that
millions could die in the South under the onslaught of a
North Korean invasion.
Clinton's dilemma was made even more complicated as
the Republican hard liners chimed in. Former president
George Bush's National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft,
and former CIA director Robert Gates argued that the U.S.
should hurry to bomb the reprocessing plant, which if
done quickly before the cooling rods were transferred to
it would minimize the risk of radioactive fall out. But
Gates who was also speculating that North Korea possessed
two nuclear bombs already didn't address the terrifying
possibility of North Korean revenge on the South.
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger came in with
his own proposal that inadvertently undercut Scowcroft
and Gates. Military action should only occur, he said, if
the North refuelled its reactor or started to reprocess
the plutonium from the cooled rods. But he ignored
Gates's and Scowcroft's point about the dangers of
bombardment on reprocessing facilities.
The stalemate in right wing opinion gave former
democratic president Jimmy Carter an opening. In a
personal odyssey to Pyongyang he successfully negotiated
with Kim Il Sung a stalling agreement, which the Clinton
Administration built on, fashioning a nuclear freeze with
his son, Kim Jong-Il who took over the leadership shortly
after, on the death of his father.
Despite all the vicissitudes in the American-North
Korean relationship, over the last eight years the
nuclear freeze, the central point, has continued.
Moreover, the North has agreed to a moratorium until 2003
on the test firing of ballistic missiles. Unlike Iraq it
sticks to its agreements. And a policy of reconciliation,
even if one conducted in fits and starts, was under way,
until Bush decided to undermine it.
Bush has no alternative to Clinton's policy when it
comes to substance. All he can do is to alter the tone of
the engagement. The result in the end will probably be
the same. It will just take that much longer and be
rather more dangerous.
Did Bush learn a thing or two during his visit to
South Korea? The next month or so will be critical. It
could be the choice between an honourable peace and a
terrible war.
I can be reached by phone +44
7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2002 By
JONATHAN POWER
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