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Politics : Clinton's Scandals: Is this corruption the worst ever? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rick Slemmer who wrote (3543)	9/1/1998 5:38:00 PM
From: Les H	Respond to of 13994

WSJ Editorial: Pyongyang's Provocation North Korea test-fired a new long-range ballistic missile over Japan Monday, prompting some stern words from Tokyo, but earning rewards from almost everyone else concerned. That's the way it works these days. Only last week, Washington and Seoul told North Korea that its suspected new nuclear weapons plant does not violate a 1994 agreement freezing the North's bomb program. If building more nukes is no big deal, who's going to complain about a few missiles to deliver them with? Among other things, lobbing a Daepodong I into the Pacific was probably an advertisement by the world's leading missile supplier to some of the world's scariest customers, including Iraq, Iran, Syria and Pakistan. It also may have been a kind of giant birthday candle ahead of next week's 50th anniversary of North Korea's founding, and the possible accession of dictator Kim Jong Il to the presidency. Most certainly, North Korea was telling the U.S., South Korea and other partners in the ill-starred nuclear power plant and oil giveaway consortium--also known as KEDO--that if those gifts aren't forthcoming soon, there's always another missile in Pyongyang's pipeline. It worked. Within hours of splashdown--originally reported to be in the Sea of Japan--Seoul promised to pay 70% of the $4.6 billion cost of building North Korea two nuclear power plants, and Washington eagerly reconfirmed a pledge to arrange the financing needed. Japan spoiled the party by refusing to sign on for $1 billion of the reactor costs. But what should upset Tokyo most is how Bill Clinton has ensured that the U.S.--and by extension Japan and America's other allies--has no hope of an effective theater missile defense anytime soon. Looking around at the world today, in fact, it would appear that millions survive only because no crazed dictator or terrorist gang has got around to targeting them. At the state level, it is difficult to think of any outrage that invites punishment these days. India and Pakistan, for instance, are under patchy sanctions for testing nuclear weapons last spring. But the countries and regions where killing sprees are under way or threatened (Kosovo, Congo, Sudan come immediately to mind) have generated little more than hand-wringing. The Clinton Administration did interrupt its long streak of inaction recently by firing some missiles at terrorist training facilities in Afghanistan and a factory in Sudan said to be manufacturing chemical warfare components. At the same time, however, we learned that the United States was taking quite a different approach to Iraq's suspected chemical warfare program, and may have been calling off U.N. inspections of Saddam's facilities in an effort to avoid a messy confrontation either with America's allies or with the dictator Washington was vowing to bomb into oblivion only six months ago. Although an American inspector with the U.N. team resigned in disgust last week, there is no sign that his gesture of displeasure with both U.N. and U.S. prevaricating over Iraq will change the status quo. In one of the most bizarre developments yet, a Sudanese official announced to the world that there was no way the bombed factory was making chemical weapons because it had the ultimate seal of approval in the form of a U.N. permit to export "medicines"--to Iraq. At the very least, that would seem to open up a very wide avenue for examining the U.N.'s decision to pick that particular factory for special exemption from sanctions so it could engage in trade with a country suspected of making weapons of mass destruction. But that would mean lifting up the same U.N. petticoats that the United States is now used to hiding behind whenever Washington can't or won't come up with policies of its own. If you ask American officials why they have walked away from the dangerous mess in Afghanistan, they will tell you that they are supporting a U.N. process to bring peace to that unhappy country. In Afghanistan's case, it amounts to an excuse for doing nothing while an entire region veers toward chaos. Meanwhile, senior policy makers have their minds free to think about countries like North Korea--which have figured out that while nickel-and-dime killers like Osama bin Laden get bombed for their sins, if you fire a long-range ballistic missile over Japan and revive your nuclear weapons program, you get a strange new respect and an offer of $4.6 billion.