The term “six-party talks”, used to describe the efforts for a peaceful resolution to the North Korean nuclear standoff, might not be a misnomer, but it’s certainly misleading. That’s because the six-party talks are really the two-party talks, with four spectators on the sidelines. Surprisingly, the other party in question isn’t South Korea; it’s the United States. Binding North Korea’s neighbors to the talks is certainly a shrewd political move that adds legitimacy and pressure to the negotiations, but as we’ve ascertained from recent events, international pressures are a distant dynamic compared to the fragility of U.S.-North Korean relations.
Since 2003, South Korea, Japan, Russia, China and the United States have been exerting pressure on North Korea to dismantle their nuclear weapons program. At the same time, President Bush promoted his policy of alienating the Stalinist regime, aligning it with the “Axis of Evil” and branding North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il a “pygmy.” Pyongyang responded to the stalemate in negotiation and overtly hostile name-calling by successfully testing a nuclear weapon this past October.
This disregard for North Korea shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. For years, the six-party talks somehow escaped the general debate and, while current analysts bicker over the potential costs of nuclear war with Iran, we instinctually stick our heads in the sand like oblivious ostriches and ignore the real threat of nuclear war with North Korea. Of the 25 paragraphs President Bush dedicated in his 2007 State of the Union address to foreign policy, 23 dealt with the Middle East, including the potential nuclear threat in Iran and its phantom link with Al-Qaeda, Iraq and Sept. 11th. He subtly interjected a single sentence mentioning North Korea. A major obstacle in American foreign policy had been blatantly omitted, and nobody seemed to notice or care.
But after more than three years of futility, the most recent talks somehow reached a breakthrough last week, displaying a consensus uncharacteristic of Bush’s obvious distaste for diplomacy. That’s because it’s not Bush’s strategy we’re currently adopting. It’s Bill Clinton’s.
Clinton’s North Korea strategy called on the two sides to take actions simultaneously and in phases. Through years of engagement, Clinton finally reached a breakthrough in 2000, culminating in Madeleine Albright’s visit to Pyongyang, the highest U.S. government official to ever visit the Stalinist regime.
All of which, of course, came crashing down when George W. came to power. Dick Cheney summed up Bush’s new Texas Ranger diplomacy: “We don’t negotiate with evil—we defeat it.” Bush’s negotiations stalled in the past because he refused to issue any serious offers to Pyongyang until their nuclear weapons program was dismantled—the sole bargaining chip North Korea possessed. This stubborn approach contrasted with the true virtue of Clinton’s Korean policy: diplomacy based upon mutual respect. When asked what the difference was this time around, an official involved in the six-party talks commented, “What’s different this time is that it is clear that both the president and Condi wanted a deal.”
Scrutinizing the details of the newest agreement, I realized that one clause embodies its true promise. In sum, it states that the United States and North Korea will hold bilateral talks on normalizing relations, and all six powers will discuss a permanent peace treaty to supplant the mere cease-fire that ended the Korean War (which is still technically active). While the provision is hardly definitive, it acknowledges that trust, an essential ingredient to the negotiations, has been missing in the past. Past agreements collapsed because of broken promises and anachronistic Cold War fears. But both sides now realize their vested interests in the negotiations: The U.S. is compelled by the threat of a non-aligned nuclear power, North Korea by survival. Trust in this case is not built from affection, but necessity.
The current agreement possesses the same porcelain fragility of past negotiations, save one difference: This time both North Korea and the United States acknowledged their crucial role in the process and have taken active steps towards reconciliation. And while many hail the current agreement as a breakthrough, it is far from done. But I’ll admit, with optimistic caution, that this is certainly a step in the right direction.
(This is my weekly column that appeared in the Daily Californian. You can also read it here)
