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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (164088)	3/12/2003 6:10:03 PM
From: d[-_-]b	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574491

Good news: msnbc.com

To: tejek who wrote (164088)	3/12/2003 6:34:58 PM
From: d[-_-]b	Respond to of 1574491

Keeping Cool on Korea Democrats play into Kim Jong Il's hands. Bush should ignore them. Friday, March 7, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST The story of late on North Korea has been that President Bush is keeping his head while everyone else seems to be losing theirs. The same people who don't want the U.S. to disarm Saddam Hussein are demanding that Mr. Bush drop everything and disarm Kim Jong Il--right now, if not faster. A lot of this, probably most of it, can be dismissed as partisan politics. Having lost the Congressional vote and public debate on Iraq, some Democrats figure that North Korea is their opening to assail Mr. Bush's foreign policy. Thus we have the spectacle of Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd, who worry not at all about Saddam getting nuclear weapons, now thundering that North Korea is the "more immediate threat." These are doves wearing press-on hawk talons for the TV cameras. Their sincerity is all the more doubtful when you consider their counsel: Mr. Bush must "negotiate directly" with North Korea. Of course. Why didn't anyone else think of that? Sit down with Kim Jong Il, one of the world's great rationalists, and hash it out over kimchi and beer. The small question this strategy begs, and which the critics don't want to acknowledge up front, is what then? The idea that Kim is going to give up his nuclear ambitions in return for the privilege of conversation with Colin Powell is--well, optimistic is the nicest word for it. The Korean doves-in-drag are really saying that the U.S. should break out its checkbook. Buy Kim off, give him a few billion dollars, or a couple of nuclear-power plants, or whatever else is on his shopping list. We are then supposed to believe that this time Kim will mean it when he says he won't build a bomb, unlike his similar promise to Bill Clinton, who was so impressed in 1994 that he allowed Kim to keep the same stockpile of plutonium he is now using to blackmail the U.S. once again. Running a creaky dictatorship atop an impoverished country, Kim has chosen this moment of U.S. preoccupation with Iraq to act up again. He is trying to get precisely the panicky reaction he is getting in many quarters, hoping that the Bush Administration can be pressured to blink and pay his ransom. In that sense the cries of the Bush critics are playing directly into Kim's hands. North Korea's neighbors in Beijing and in Seoul have also played the panic game. Of course the Bush Administration has to take Kim's military taunts seriously. If the past is any guide, we haven't yet seen the worst of them. Two weeks ago he fired one of his missiles into the Sea of Japan and this week his jets harassed a U.S. surveillance plane flying in international waters. It's possible Kim is desperate enough to do something truly stupid, such as take Americans prisoner (a la the Pueblo incident) or shoot down a plane. U.S. decisions to move B-52s to Guam, closer to Korea, and to have fighter jets escort other flights are only prudent, and are the kind of calm but firm response that Kim will notice and that might deter him from the worst. But Mr. Bush has been right to keep his cool and not overreact to every provocation. We agree with those critics who say this Administration has had too many voices discussing the Korean problem in public, especially the recent soliloquy by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. But with 250,000 of its troops mobilized near Iraq, the U.S. lacks the military and diplomatic leverage to bring to bear on North Korea right now. Sooner or later the U.S. may have to talk to the North (preferably along with our allies), or perhaps use military force against its bomb-making facilities, but better to make those decisions from a position of strength. The American priority now is dispensing with Saddam, an act of global hygiene that will certainly get Kim Jong Il's attention. Then Mr. Bush can turn his attention to North Korea--with more military assets on hand, and with the credibility that attaches to a U.S. President who has done in Iraq what he promised he would do.