North Korean leader Kim Jung Il as characterized in the film "Team America: World Police." He still kinda looks like Yoko Ono...even as a marionette, don't you think??
So...North Korea has the bomb.
At least, that's what they said today. We've known since 2003 that they had at least one--because they told us--but now they claim they will "bolster" their nuclear arsenal. We've been here before in our history. It was a different nation and a different time. Instead of the Soviet Union, it is now North Korea. What we have, is the beginning of a brand new Cold War.
North Korea has now "left the table" in the six-party nuclear disarmament talks. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has asked them to reconsider and sit down with the international community to achieve a solution that ensures the stability of the region.
Several in the Media Spin Machine have suggested that North Korea's acquisition of nuclear weapons is the fault of the Bush Administration---having concentrated on Iraq and ignoring the gathering threat posed by the North Koreans. While the merits of that argument are debatable, there are several facts that deserve to be brought to the fore.
Back in October of 1994, former President Jimmy Carter and Kim Jung Il established an "Agreed Framework" in which North Korea agreed to halt activities at its plutonium producing nuclear reactors. In return, they would receive relaxed economic sanctions, gradual normalization of diplomatic relations, hundreds of millions of dollars in fuel oil deliveries and construction of a light-water reactor to replace the "big bad boy" plutonium reactor that they were forced to halt construction on.
In other words, we gave them nuclear technology as long as they promised to not use it for weapons. They have nuclear reactors now because it was the negotiated policy of the United States of America to help them build the technology.
Kim Jung Il played Bill Clinton like a fiddle. He may be a nut-job, but he knew an unwitting dupe when he saw one.
That's not the only interesting development in all of this, either.
A Reuters News report on a Swiss website says that North Korea purchased a nuclear weapon from either Pakistan or a former member of the Soviet Union. This information, originally reported by a South Korean newspaper, claims to quote a source in Washington.
So, not only has North Korea restarted the reactor in Yongbyon that was closed in the 1994 Agreed Framework, now they've also reportedly purchased a complete nuclear weapon from another nation.
People complain that President Bush rushed into Iraq and let the situation in North Korea escalate because we were employing diplomacy. He didn't give them any technology or materials like his predecessor did. He chose to negotiate and work with North Korea to try to find a peaceful solution with the help of the international community.
The very thing that people said they wish he'd done with Iraq. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
It's safe to say that the situation in North Korea isn't so much the fault of the United States, but we will certainly look to lead the way in diffusing it. While Condoleezza Rice will encourage the North Koreans to come back to the international bargaining table, I personally believe that we will acquiesce to their demands to sit down with us one-on-one to negotiate. It is not what the Bush Administration wanted, but Kim Jung Il has just upped the ante considerably. This and future Presidents will do everything in their power to find a diplomatic solution.
The route we took to arrive here is practically irrelevant. We are here. There's no going back. North Korea has nukes and Iran is probably not far behind. Unlike the Soviet Union, though, these two nations don't appear to be afraid to use them against the United States. The only constant in this equation is North Korea and their desire to bully the rest of the world.
Welcome, my friends, to the new Cold War. Now with more isolationism, xenophobia and and international tension than the old Cold War.
A new day and an old fear have dawned.
William Smith
ConservativeBlogger.com
