Asia Times On the Six Way Talks
The Asia Times has an article that backs my analysis of what the North Koreans want to get out of the current 6 Party Talks:
Thus, the third critical point: the US is going to have to accept this, too. China and South Korea (and Russia) will not back the US demand for “complete verifiable” nuclear disarmament. In these circumstances, it is Washington, not Pyongyang, that risks isolation for pushing too hard. (The Japanese could come down either way.) Doing so could alienate South Korea and marginalize the US on the Korean peninsula and Northeast Asia, the real strategic prize. Moreover, accepting the ambiguity surrounding the original plutonium is merely going back to the status quo ante of the Agreed Framework.
By this logic, a six-party agreement would be a gradual process that dismantles the North Korean nuclear infrastructure, starting with the 8,000 fuel rods and then moves on to the disputed uranium-enrichment program. Dismantlement by the North would be matched by economic aid from the South, humanitarian assistance from other parties and diplomatic recognition from the US. The process would be long and carefully calibrated, but by the end the North would be left with whatever nuclear weapons that had been built from the fissile material generated before the Agreed Framework and had been hidden.
The article stresses that to get any deal done with Pyongyang the US will have to allow the North Koreans to keep some nuclear weapons and not have a rigid inspection system to ensure compliance with whatever agreement they cook up at these talks.
I continue to maintain that the North Koreans want a nice face saving deal that gives them the free food, money, and the oil they need to keep the regime going plus have enough flexibility in the agreement to be able to covertly hide their weapons program.
This is what the North Koreans and everyone else wants except the US. The international community wants to resolve this issue without really resolving it, just like the 1994 Agreed Framework. In the coming days we will see if the US is willing to live with a agreement like this.
I agree it sounds like the 1994 agreed framework all over again, when Clinton threw the baby out with the bathwater. I'm not buying it at all. The other parties can frown all they want to, but the real players here are N. Korea and the US. We are not going to fall, or be coerced into jumping in that trap again. If Chris Hill and the Bush administration allow us to be suckered the same way Clinton was, I'll print this page and eat it. I believe we'd walk away and play a little brinkmanship ourselves at the UN Security council before we'd settle for less than full disclosure.
Well said, US. The idea of us (the US) further subsidizing the DPRK is so utterly revolting to me that it is why I'm so willing to "turn over the card table" by bringing out all our troops.
Let the ROK subsidize them and keep them afloat (they're already terrified of the North anyway).
There's not going to be another war, nor will the DPRK dare to go into the nuclear export business. We don't need to be there any longer. Who knows, even maybe the South's strategy of appeasement will work over the long term and the North will gradually crumble (though the history of the downfall of totalitarian states suggests otherwise, usually they look strong until suddenly they implode).
If it goes up with a bang, hopefully the damage will remain confined within North Korea itself. Our non-presence on the peninsula will help to ensure this IMO.
Right.
Even if North Korea had the desire to be willing to give up all its nukes and systems, it does not believe it can do it and keep the society in tact. And it goes beyond the nukes but to the heart of what everybody keeps saying is the final outcome that Pyongyang wants — recognition by the US and a normal relationship with the world — which means developmental and aid assistance loans and grants from the world community (heavily so by the US since we contribute the most to them).
North Korea see opening up, anything like it would take to gain widespread acceptance that will allow things like the World Bank or IMF or such regional or global orgs to feed it resources, as a threat to its survival. It does not believe it can take the measures it will have to take and survive. But, it has seen in the 1990s that the regime can survive with a bare minimum of resources provided by others.
It is willing to take whatever the US will give and dismantle parts of its programs, but it will also always keep not only the nukes it has, but whatever amount of material it can keep while giving away whatever it takes to satisfy the outside forces of the moment, to make a few more bombs with, because it has watched Iraq and other US efforts and wants to be sure to keep a heavy deterent.
And if it ever gets the chance to see USFK fully removed, it can use the extra nukes as a good deterent to make American citizens revolt at the idea of fighting in Korean War II.
And Pyongyang should take some comfort in what it sees in world opinion. It should have some confidence the US won't be able to attack it or feel that it can within acceptable parameters.
It should also take some comfort in the fact that those who want to exert influence do so pointed at the United States, because everybody believes North Korea is a crazed state that can't be cracked or influenced, so why not try with the nation where opinon can be swayed?
And especially take comfort in the fact that people of influence keep saying the crisis is "rising" and that if the US doesn't find a way to cut a deal, the sky will fall, and North Korea will churn out nukes like hot cakes and feel free to sell them in vending machines around the world.
To me, this is the most depressing thing about the nuke crisis.
I think it is a false idea all the way around. North Korea isn't going to make 1,000 nukes and just sit on them. But, since regime survival is its most overriding principle, it isn't going to feel free to sell them around the world. They have shown they are not stupid. They would consider very, very carefully before even selling one to a trusted ally, and North Korea doesn't have trusted allies. Even with Iran, it would be afraid the exchange would be uncovered during the act, which has happened with missile shipments and drugs and cash. It would even more so be afraid the US would invade Iran or that Iran would suffer a revolution or that the Iranian leadership would pull a Libya — and the world would find out about the nuke shipments after the fact. Or a credible scientist or military leader would defect with evidence. And so on…
And if the cat ever got out of the bag that North Korea had sold nuclear bombs or ready to make nuclear bomb material — it would just about assuredly give the US a green light to take Pyongyang out.
Why take such a risk if they can survive on what they can squeeze out of the world? Pressuring the outside world with blackmail is a much better and safer reveunue stream than selling nukes.
But, the outside world has decided a deal has to be made no matter what, and they have clearly decided that if North Korea won't open up or get rid of its nuclear option, it is the duty of the US to cave and give them whatever is necessary in an agreement the world can look at and feel good about.
Though it will solve nothing….
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200508/11/20050811…
Looks like the uni loony is at it again and SouthKorea wants the US to go right back into the so called agreed framework.
Morons and racists, glad I leave Korea soon