Grabbing the Nettle
by Nicholas Kristof

The Pentagon held an all-day meeting a couple of weeks ago seeking ways to restrain North Korea. At the end of it, one expert turned to another and summed it up: "In other words, we're" doomed — except he used a pungent phrase I can't.

It was a fair judgment. North Korea was always more terrifying than Iraq, and now the situation is getting worse.

It's true, as the administration enthusiastically announced yesterday, that we seem to be moving toward a new round of multiparty talks with North Korea, and that's great. But it's very unclear what North Korea is demanding and when the talks will take place. In any case, no one thinks that this round of talks will produce much more than possible photo-ops.

Meanwhile, the North seems to be proceeding steadily, perhaps as fast as its rusty technology will allow, to build nuclear weapons, using both plutonium and uranium methods.

"Time is slipping away for a peaceful resolution of the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula," warns a major report issued yesterday by the International Crisis Group. It adds: "North Korea has the materials and the capability to develop nuclear weapons — more than 200 of them by 2010."

What would it do with them? Well, it may have been bluster, but a senior North Korean official, Li Gun, warned a U.S. counterpart that if the stalemate continued, North Korea could transfer nukes abroad.

While President Bush has said he won't tolerate a nuclear North Korea, it looks as if that may be where we are headed. Part of the problem is that the administration is still groping for a policy on North Korea.

"We have an attitude, not a policy," said Donald Gregg, a former ambassador to South Korea who is president of the Korea Society in New York.
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