BARACK Obama’s policy of engagement with North Korea lies “in tatters” after it was effectively shot down by Pynongyang’s defiant but failed attempt to launch a long-range rocket.

Former US officials closely involved with North Korea policy said Washington’s attempt to win agreement from Pyongyang to abandon its development of nuclear weapons and rockets in exchange for desperately-needed food aid has failed. They now expect North Korea to try and overcome the embarrassment caused at the rocket breaking into pieces over the Yellow Sea by carrying out a third nuclear test in the near future.

If that goes ahead, it will represent a significant foreign policy failure for Obama and prove a severe political embarassment in an election year.

In February, the Washingon and Pyongyang reached an agreement under which the communist regime would halt its missile testing and uranium enrichment, and agree to the resumption of international monitoring of its nuclear sites, in return for Washington providing 240,000 tonnes of food to the North Korea which has faced widespread shortages and famine.

The US says it warned North Korea that the rocket launch, which Pyongyang said was intended to carry a satellite but which the Obama administration claimed was a ballistic missile test, would violate the agreement.

Charles Pritchard, a special envoy for negotiations with North Korea in the Bush administration and a special assistant to Bill Clinton on national security, said Obama’s policy of engagement has now failed.

“It is essentially in tatters. They made a calculation. They reached out to North Korea and it fell apart,” he said. “I think the US will be essentially regrouping on an international basis. They’re not going to go back to a bilateral engagement with the North Koreans any time soon.”

Pritchard said that the regime’s young new leader, Kim Jong-un, is likely to attempt to restore Pyongang’s credibility, and possibly also his own with North Korea’s military, by pressing ahead with development of a nuclear weapon.

“The failure of the rocket makes it much more likely that there will be a third nuclear test. This has been a huge public and domestic embarrassment for North Korea. A brand new, untested, inexperienced regime that has gone out on a limb to really have a spectacular successful celebration, and now it’ll be a dark shadow over all of their celebrations. They need some new achievement.”

That view was backed by Christian Whiton, a US State Department deputy special envoy to North Korea in the Bush administration.

Obama’s domestic critics swiftly accused him of creating the crisis through weakness. Some have contrasted the president’s stand against Iran with his more cautious approach on North Korea. Mitt Romney, the likely Republican presidential candidate, said Obama was incompetent and naive in handling North Korea.

— The Guardian, London