Wishful Thinking?
February 14th, 2007More on the “disarmament agreement” with North Korea.
A hard-won disarmament pact that the U.S. and four other nations struck with North Korea on Tuesday requires the communist nation to halt its nuclear programs in exchange for oil while leaving the ultimate abandonment of those weapons projects to a potentially trouble-filled future. In a sign of potential problems to come, North Korea’s state news agency said the country was receiving 1 million tons of oil for a “temporary suspension” of its nuclear facilities — and failed to mention the full disarmament for which the agreement calls.
It wasn’t clear if the report represented an attempt by the government to backtrack on the deal, or was simply a statement of bluster for a deeply impoverished domestic audience that Pyongyang has rallied around the nuclear program as a cause for national pride. And by tackling so many issues in a process likely to take years, the deal could unravel, pulled apart by differing agendas of its six signers, which also include China, South Korea, Russia and Japan. “We have a lot of work to do,” U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters. “It’s certainly not the end of the process, it’s really just the end of the beginning of the process.”
That sounds about right. I’m confident enough, and always have been, that the North Koreans will never nuke anyone, but there’s always been that doubt. If we can just keep talking, I think we’ll disarm them eventually. It’ll take Kim Jung Il’s death, in all likelihood, but I believe there are better days ahead on the Korean Peninsula and they involve eventual reunification and no, I don’t think that’s wishful thinking at all.