SINGAPORE, Feb 5: To a prying US satellite, North Korea’s nuclear game is openly on display, but if Iraq has weapons of mass destruction they are carefully concealed.
That has analysts asking why the United States is so eager to tackle Saddam Hussein, but won’t take on fellow “axis of evil” leader Kim Jong-il.
Iraq has oil. But North Korea has 11,000 artillery pieces trained on Seoul, capital of the world’s 13th-richest country, and is surrounded by major allies and trading partners of the United States who do not want instability on their patch.
“The situation is absurd,” said one US arms control analyst. “The US wouldn’t dare try to apply the standards it is attempting to impose in Iraq to North Korea because the Asian region would not tolerate an attack on North Korea. This is blatantly inconsistent.”
North Korea has been consistent, however. The reclusive Kim is doing everything he can to force Washington to sit down at the negotiating table through open provocation.
Kim has all but admitted enriching uranium for a nuclear bomb, has withdrawn from a global treaty preventing the spread of atomic arms, has threatened to resume missile testing and has poured out propaganda about visits to inspire frontline troops.
Most recently, Kim’s trucks have been driving around his Yongbyon nuclear complex in broad daylight and in full view of US satellites, as if moving plutonium rods out of the ponds in which they have lain untouched for eight years and into a plant to be reprocessed into weapons.
While Saddam Hussein insists he has no weapons of mass destruction, Kim could hardly be more of a show-off.
“Tactically, he is raising the uncertainties with this truck and rod game,” said Nick Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
That raises concerns that Kim will press ahead and Washington will ignore his provocations until one side blinks.
“It’s a roll of the dice, and no one wants to test North Korean restraint,” said Michael Reiss, dean of the International Affairs College of William and Mary in Virginia.
But Kim has a timetable. He worries that if the US completes regime change in Iraq, Washington, which has 37,000 troops stationed in South Korea, could turn its military machine towards his isolated state.
“I think there is a serious danger,” said John Steinbruner, professor of public policy at the University of Maryland, referring to North Korean nervousness that it would be next to find itself in US sights if a US invasion of Iraq succeeded.
“The (US) administration may have trouble meeting that timescale,” Steinbruner said.
It is at that stage that North Korea and its leader may enter uncharted territory.
“This drama reaches its crescendo around the time the US is predicted to be involved in Iraq operations and that makes sense from a North Korean standpoint,” said Eberstadt.
“It’s all a zero sum game.”
So far, Kim has followed the strategy map laid out by his father, who ruled North Korea from its birth after World War Two until his death in 1994, just as that nuclear crisis was reaching resolution with a deal to freeze the programme in return for US assistance.
Kim faces two real choices, analysts say. Either declare North Korea a nuclear power or reach an understanding with the US that involves genuine dismantling of the nuclear programme.
Both are dangerous — the former from abroad and the latter at home. Both take the heir to the world’s first communist dynasty onto new ground.
The dangers are not only for Kim and North Korea.
Failure to engage holds risks for Washington, which does not want to see Pyongyang in possession of nuclear arms.
“By not talking to them, we jeopardise our relationship with South Korea and our stature in Asia,” said one US analyst. And there is no guarantee that engagement will succeed.
US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday that Washington would definitely hold talks with Pyongyang — but in an international setting. That is not what Kim wants to hear.
Kim is insisting the US sign a non-aggression treaty. Armitage said Washington can offer written assurances, but a treaty would never win approval from the Senate.
Senator Joseph Biden, a Democrat from Delaware, wasn’t so sure. “If the president of the US said he wanted it, I’ll bet you a million dollars it would change,” he replied.
Some were less than reassured by Armitage’s statement that talks were certain to happen.
“Talks are not likely to be negotiations. But rather American officials with megaphones blasting North Korea with their viewpoint on what it should be doing,” said Eberstadt. “Much pivots on how one defines the word ‘talk’.”
And while Washington works out how to talk to North Korea and what to say, Kim could have developed nuclear arms. —Reuters