Nuclear
war can be avoided
in Korea
By
Jonathan
Power
December 20, 2002
LONDON - Of all the rogues there is no question that Kim
Jong-Il and his odious regime in North Korea are the
furthest advanced in threatening the outside world with
nuclear weapons. Yet an honest administration in
Washington has to ask itself how much the U.S. has been
responsible for bringing about this state of affairs, one
that threatens to escalate fast with North Korea
announcing in October it was enriching uranium to build a
nuclear weapon and now last week in effect abrogating the
landmark 1994 agreement.
The 1994 agreement avoided war, one that President
Bill Clinton was convinced could lead to a nuclear attack
on South Korean cities and American troops based in the
South. In the circumstances it was an amazing deal,
midwifed by former president, Jimmy Carter. The North
agreed to close its plutonium-producing nuclear power
plant, and seal up the cooling rods from which
weapons-grade plutonium could be extracted. In return,
America with Japan and South Korea agreed to build two
modern, non plutonium-producing nuclear power stations to
be in production by 2003. Also the U.S. agreed that it
would end its economic embargo and help the North with
fuel oil, food and electricity.
But the deal has been coming apart almost from the day
it was signed. What happened the last two months is but
the visible manifestation of a lot of less dangerous
things that have been going wrong for years. And all
along there have been warnings enough (from this
columnist for one) that if these stumbling blocks weren't
put right we'd end up where we were in 1994, with the
threat of nuclear war staring us in the face. For few
doubt, even those who are toughest on North Korea, that
if it comes to a military conflict and North Korea feels
it has everything to lose it will use the two nuclear
weapons it already supposedly has.
It was this threat that persuaded the Republican
hardliners in Congress during the days of the Clinton
Administration to go along with the main elements of the
deal, even as they provoked the North with their constant
attempts to minimise the commitments the U.S. had made to
secure it. There were a number of times when the fuel oil
deliveries or the food supplies were slowed. There was
the successful effort in Congress to break the promise of
ending sanctions, delaying action on this until 1999 when
they were finally but only partially lifted. There was
the blockage on talking about ways to help the North with
outside electricity supplies from the South to tide it
over until the new reactors were built. Not least, there
was the slowdown on the building of the new nuclear
reactors, with the prospect of them being complete now 5
years behind schedule. It has become clear that they
won't be ready until 2008.
All of these setbacks have been reason enough in the
North's mind for ratcheting up the confrontations.
Confrontation, they appeared to decide some time ago, is
the only way to get results. Whether it is digging an
enormous hole that convinced the Americans that the North
was about to test nuclear triggers (wrongly as it turned
out, after paying a huge sum for the U.S. to be allowed
to inspect it). Or test flying a long range rocket over
Japan, which was what persuaded Congress to ease the
economic embargo.
Still, the 1994 agreement limped along (and even
looked as if it might be enlarged to include a
restriction on missile sales) until George Bush came into
office and made his "Axis of Evil" speech in which Iraq,
Iran and North Korea were singled out. Even though the
Bush administration did not move at first to discontinue
the aid programme (the largest America has in Asia) or to
stop work on the building of the two new reactors it did
lean on South Korea to slow down its so-called "Sunshine"
policy of political reconciliation. It also refused to
talk about other sources of electricity supplies,
prohibited its ally, South Korea, to honour a promise to
send electricity North and refused all talk and
consideration of a refurbishment of the North's
electricity grid despite the growing delays on the new
reactors. And it gave the impression that it was in such
a confrontational mood of its own that it might well give
up on further negotiations with the North. Out of the
window would go a new deal that Clinton believed he was
close to settling, which would freeze deployment of
missiles with a range of more than 500 kilometres (300
miles). And maybe out of the window would go the nuclear
freeze deal itself that probably has stopped the North
building 30 nuclear bombs a year the last few years.
It has come as no surprise to many Korea watchers that
Pyongyang has decided to up the ante in the last two
months. Over many years it has discovered that offence is
the best defence in dealing with the U.S.. Now it
unsubtly says it needs to bring back into use its
mothballed plutonium-producing power reactor to make up
the shortfall in its energy needs. We are back to square
one. The U.S. only has two choices, the old ones - either
to go to war and risk a nuclear exchange or, for the
first time, to honour its side of the 1994 bargain and go
full steam ahead, with no ifs and buts, to help the
beleaguered North Korean economy get back on its feet.
The only question is how long will it take Mr Bush to
face up to reality.
I can be reached by phone +44
7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2002 By
JONATHAN POWER
Follow this
link to read about - and order - Jonathan Power's book
written for the
40th Anniversary of
Amnesty International
"Like
Water on Stone - The Story of Amnesty
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