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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (79538)	3/4/2003 3:22:25 PM
From: michael97123	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Jacob, Finally agree with you about something with one caveat. Korea broke the 1994 deal in 1998. Remember clinton was president then and there was no axis of evil. So the deal you push is a good one if we can both trust and verify. mike PS my view on what a saddam with wmds a few years down the road makes me a hawk there. Is there a deal you could come up with that would be verifiable that where saddam would give up wmds and his aspirations for nukes. Think not because he is intent on controlling half a dozen states plus the radical movement in his neighborhood.

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (79538)	3/4/2003 6:47:55 PM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 281500

I believe that the dilatory behavior of the US towards building North Korea's nuclear reactors was in response to the refusal of North Korea to verify that it was keeping its end of the deal. North Korea wanted to have both its cake and eat it, too. They wanted their nuclear weapon program as well as for the US, et al, to construct the Light Water Reactors while it hid the fact that its Heavy Water Reactor program was still active. The problem for us may be terminology. It may well be that North Korean promised to stop its plutonium program in return for Light Water Reactors, but never mentioned the Heavy Water Reactors. I believe this is one of the things they are arguing. Not being a nuclear engineer, nor able to read the Korean version of the documents executed, I simply don't know. At any rate, we are where we are now, regardless of how we got here. They are now starting up their plutonium reactor program again, we are not constructing their Light Water Reactors, and it appears to be lose-lose. The peacemap suggested as reading for today's discussion starts with a multi-party conference. Last I checked, China and Russia don't want to do that. We don't want to sit down with them face to face. China wants us to sign a non-aggression pact. We don't want to do that, either. I don't think we really know what to do. This wasn't in our game plan. One more reason the "axis of evil" speech wasn't one that I would have given. The Israeli-style solution of bombing the nuclear facilities risks the lives of millions of South Koreans in what is charmingly called the "kill box" of Seoul. The utopian solution I see is for North Korea and South Korea to re-unite, a la' East and West Germany. Nobody is stopping them but each other. At least, I certainly hope we aren't stopping humanitarian circulation between the two countries. If we are, we should stop immediately. I would say, open up check points in the DMZ, and let anybody through that doesn't have weapons. South Korea should be letting in refugees, and we should be feeding them and rehabilitating them, perhaps as a transnational humanitarian effort.