| Nuclear Blackmail |
6 January 2003
|
Pyongyang is Beijing's Problem
The technique is as old as the art of magic, misdirection. Quite simply, the idea is to focus attention away from the action. While Bush 43 is paying attention to Iraq, the criminally insane regime in North Korea is tearing up every nuclear non-proliferation agreement in sight. One wonders if Washington is smart enough to make China fix the problem, since it has painted itself into a corner with Saddam and can do nothing itself.
At first, it was amusing to hear White House talking head Ari Fleischer try to explain that US foreign policy couldn't be a "one-size-fits-all" arrangement, that Iraq and North Korea were different countries and so they had to be treated differently. However, it makes one wonder what Mr. Fleischer thinks the word "policy" means.
Fleischer, however, was signaling to the world that the US knew it couldn't fight two wars at once by itself. Rumsfeld's warning that his military could deal with Kim and Saddam means nothing because Powell and Rice haven't got their end ordered for war in even one instance (yet). Fortunately, North Korea doesn't really want the bomb so much as it does foreign aid without compromising the security of the system there. So, diplomacy will work -- just not American diplomacy.
The solution is merely to let someone else handle it -- just as Afghani's fought the Taliban, let another nation's diplomats deal with Pyongyang. China springs to mind as a country with great leverage over the Kim regime. And how does one focus Beijing's attention on the problem? Quid pro quo; so long as North Korea doesn't play with nukes, neither will Taiwan. The Chinese will understand.