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"We have reaffirmed our
commitment to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. The actions taken
by North Korea are unacceptable and deserve an immediate response
by the UN Security Council." President George Bush; following
the detonation of North Korea's first nuclear weapon
It took 6 years of relentless threats,
sanctions and belligerence, but Bush finally succeeded in pushing
Kim Jong-Il to build North Korea's first nuclear bomb. Now, Kim
can just add a few finishing touches to his ballistic-missile
delivery system, the Taepo-dong ICBM, and he'll be able to wipe
out the 9 western states with a flip of the switch.
In a matter of hours, the world
has become a much more dangerous place, a fact that will have
no effect of the blinkered ideologues at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
They've probably already moved on to the next phase of their
plan to expand the Middle East catastrophe; Armageddon in Iran.
The crisis with North Korea
was entirely avoidable for anyone with even minimal diplomatic
skills and an elementary understanding of human psychology. Instead,
the Bush troupe persisted for 6 years with the same inflexible
policy nudging Kim ever-closer to producing his first nuclear
weapon.Now, half the population of the United States is in the
gun-sights of a madcap tyrant whose basic grasp of reality has
always been seriously in doubt.
At the same time, the White
House has resumed issuing statements via its sardonic press secretary,
Tony Snow, that Bush "is closely monitoring the situation
and reaffirms his commitment to defend our allies in the region."
"Monitoring the situation"?
Bush has done everything in his power to facilitate the North
Korean despot's quest for WMD except hand-deliver atom-bombs
to the front porch of his imperial palace!
Bush has put everyone in the
region at greater risk and, without a doubt, triggered a nuclear-arms
race in Japan, China and South Korea. It is the death-knell for
non-proliferation and the threadbare NPT.
The Bush administration has
known what Kim wants for 6 years and has had ample opportunity
to find a peaceful resolution to the standoff. North Korea's
demands go back to the original 1994 "Framework Agreement"
in which Bill Clinton promised to provide food, fuel and 2 light-water
reactors in exchange for North Korea's abandoning its nuclear
weapons programs. The North agreed to these terms, but the United
States has never honored its obligations.
When Bush took office, the
agreement was jettisoned altogether and Bush pushed for sanctions.
He placed North Korea on the "Axis of Evil" list, threatened
regime change, and publicly announced that he "loathed"
Kim Jung Il. All of this fueled the confrontation and thrust
the wary Kim towards developing a viable nuclear deterrent to
US aggression. Kim had no intention of being the next victim
of Bush's preemptive policy.
Bush's dim-witted bravado and
saber-rattling has only made negotiations more difficult and
aggravated an already tense situation. Even when it was announced
that Kim would be testing a nuclear device sometime during this
past weekend, the headstrong Bush still refused to enter "11th
hour" negotiations. Instead, his Assistant Secretary of
State Christopher Hill issued yet another ominous-sounding threat
that "North Korea can either have a future or they can have
those weapons. They can't have both."
Kim, of course, brushed off
the warning and detonated the bomb
American Intelligence agencies
now believe that North Korea has enough fissile material for
between 2 to 8 nuclear warheads and they are speeding ahead with
the development of the requisite delivery systems.
What will Bush do now?
Will he bomb the North and
potentially open another front on the Korean Peninsula for our
already over-extended military? Or will he simply continue with
the fiery rhetoric and the chest-thumping bluster?
His track-record is far from
reassuring.
The Bush team will probably
follow their familiar pattern of ignoring the dilemma while creating
a public relations smokescreen to conceal their incompetence.
Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice will
undoubtedly make their appearances on the morning talk shows
claiming that "we are all much safer" under the enlightened
leadership of George Bush. Perhaps, they could synchronize their
silly assertions to coincide with the explosion of Korea's next
nuclear weapon.
How could Bush let the situation
get so out-of-hand? After all, the central tenet of the war on
terror is: "We will not let the world's most dangerous weapons
fall into the hands of the world's worst dictators"? Instead,
they have elevated an unstable megalomaniac into a nuclear-armed
menace. It could turn out to be the greatest foreign policy meltdown
in American history.
Bush needs to forgo the Texas
bravado and make substantive changes to the present policy before
North Korea becomes the world's largest WMD-production factory.
First, he should agree to two-party
talks with representatives from the North, which is what North
Korea has demanded from the very beginning.
Second, he should review all
sanctions directed against North Korea and publicly state that
he will reassess whether they are truly justified.
Third, (and most important)
Bush should offer firm assurances in the form of a treaty that
North Korea WILL NOT BE ATTACKED BY THE UNITED STATES IF IT ABANDONS
ITS NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAMS. This has been the North's primary
demand from the very onset of the crisis. (although it has been
omitted from newspaper coverage to conceal the fact that the
rest of the world is actually terrified of the America's erratic
behavior)
Fourth, the administration
should reconsider providing the oil, food, and light-water reactors
which were part of the original "Framework Agreement"
as long as North Korea agrees to undergo intensive "go anywhere,
see anything" inspections conducted by the UN nuclear watchdog,
the IAEA.
A larger tragedy can still
be averted if cooler heads prevail. The time for bluster is past.
The present policy is a dead-loss which has put everyone in greater
peril.
The North is currently working
out the kinks in its Taepo-dong ICBM. If we are serious that
"We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud,"
(as Condi Rice opined) the administration must take positive
steps to defuse the present crisis; its time to change directions,
amend the policy, and negotiate a peaceful settlement. The alternatives
are too horrific to consider.
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.
