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Thursday, March 29, 2007

here's another article from Newsweek:

Newsweek 26 February 2007

"Now Comes The Hard Part"

The ink was barely dry on the nuclear deal signed February 13 by North Korea and the other members of the Six Party Talks before pundits began to blast the agreement. The arrangement - under which North Korea promised to seal and then disable core parts of its nuclear-weapons programs in exchange for energy aid and gradual relief from international sanctions - has been attacked by hawks, including former Bush staffers, as a reward for bad behavior. Former Clinton asides, meanwhile, say it's nothing more than what they negotiated in the 1994 Agreed Framework - which would still be in effect had Bush stuck with the plan. As happens so often these days, the left and the right are converging to attack the president. But while the deal may not be perfect, both sides have got it wrong.

To start, the new accord goes way beyond the 1994 agreement, which promised North Korea two light-water nuclear reactors woth more than $5 billion and hundreds of millions of dollars of heavy fuel oil in exchange for its freezing and eventually dismanding its nuclear programs. There was no deadline built into the deal, and enforcement fell to Washington alone.

This time, North Korea is being offered no light-water reactors and is being given a very strict deadline - 60 days - within which it must begin sealing its nuclear facility at Yongbyon and detail all its nuclear-weapons programs. After that Pyongyang must start identifying and dismantling its nuclear programs. China and North Korea's other neighbors are now parties to the arrangement and have agreed to strict benchmarks.

The involvement of these outside parties helps explain why the deal finally came together now. China was far less co-operative in 2002, when the United States caught North Korea cheating on the Agreed Framework by running a highly enriched uranium (HEU) weapons program; Beijing refused to get involved. The Bush administration eventually managed to convince the Chinese to host the Six Party Talks, however. Beijing continued to support Pyongyang's demands for light-water reactors and avoided putting pressure on Kim Jong Il. But China now had its own reputation on the line.

When North Korea defiantly tested a nuclear device last year against Beijing's wishes, China's President Hu Jintao was reportedly furious at the loss of face. He began squeezing North Korea in ways once unimaginable, supporting U.N. sanctions and helping freeze North Korean bank accounts. It was this Chinese pressure that proved decisive this year, forcing the North Koreans to return to the table and accept a deal that fell well short of their initial demands.

All this goes to prove the critics wrong. It does not, however, mean that the deal is guaranteed to work. There are worrisome signs that North Korea is still not serious about fulfilling its obligations. The nukes are Kim Jong Il's only trump card; his decrepit nation is forced to depend on China for half its food and most of its oil supplies. In Kim's paranoid worldview, a few nuclear bombs are the only thing that preserves his rule and prevents his country's absorption by his neighbors.

It bodes ill that the North Korean media has already started describing the Six Party Talks as "arms control" negotiations among fellow nuclear-weapons states. Pyongyang has still refused to acknowledge the existence of its HEU program, which violates all previous commitments and could produce dozens of bombs once operational. If North Korea does not include the program on its list of nuclear facilities to be dismantled, the deal cannot move forward. Pyongyang could also reintroduce old demands for light-water reactors or the unconditional lifting of sanctions in order to stall the process and avoid implementing the agreement. If it does, there is a real risk Seoul and Beijing will be tempted to tolerate the delay; even Washington, preoccupied with Iraq, might go along. If they do, North Korea will continue working on its weapons programs, and possibly even stage another test to eke out still more concessions.

Fortunately, because of its built-in deadlines, the new deal makes it easy to tell if North Korea is faking it - much easier than the Agreed Framework did. The real challenge for Washington now is to avoid declaring victory and turning its attention elsewhere. Instead, it must work to keep its partners onboard and to muster the will to punish Pyongyang (by cutting energy assistance and imposing financial sanctions) if North Korea proves intransigent. The United States has never had more leverage on North Korea than it does at the moment. If it allows the international coalition to dissolve and its determination to dissipate before North Korea shows any results, Washington will then truly risk repeating history in a dangerous way.

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