Asia Times: PYONGYANG WATCH


	September 27, 2001	atimes.com

The Koreas

PYONGYANG WATCH
Could North Korea be in the firing line?
By Aidan Foster-Carter

Our previous column for once argued North Korea's innocence. Attacking America with vicious rhetoric: sure, every day. But attack America for real? No way. Sticks and stones - remember the old saying.

Even so, I fear that when the dust clears (no metaphor, in lower Manhattan) the DPRK may find itself in the firing line - and that may not be a metaphor, either. On September 11 the world changed, very much for the worse. At the time of writing, the expected US massive retaliation had yet to begin, and was not expected to be anywhere near the Korean peninsula. So where's the risk? Simple. Washington is now going to rethink absolutely everything - and one distinct possibility is a much harder line on any and all who qualify as "rogue states", whether or not they had anything to do with September 11.

Zero tolerance is a phrase that rolled readily off Republican lips even before the recent atrocities. Far too readily. It's a stupid slogan: implying Rambo can solve everything, and those of us who think the world more complex than that are just pinko lily-livered wimps. One US friend, a liberal before, now wants retaliation to mull all options - including tactical nuclear weapons. To be fair, that was a first reaction. As time passes, cooler heads may prevail. Yet we are now in a new world, with many more unknowns.

Where does this leave North Korea? On the face of it, sitting pretty. The new US ambassador in Seoul was quick to say that he saw no reason why September 11 should affect US readiness to talk to Pyongyang. In saying that, Tom Hubbard - a veteran negotiator with the DPRK, as deputy assistant secretary of state for Asia under Clinton - was as much seeking to make policy as reflecting it. This stance has since been reiterated by Colin Powell. A positive response, as per the recent resumption of inter-Korean dialogue, would be Kim Jong-il's best bet for getting off any future hooks with a now more tough-minded US.

But if the Dear Leader dithers, as is his habit, he courts danger. Those who see the new climate as open season on all America's foes everywhere are, predictably, gunning for him. Thus Forbes magazine in its September 18 issue published a piece entitled "North Korea: Another Outcropping of Terrorism", which does its best to tar Pyongyang with the terrorist brush. It's fascinating stuff - check it out at forbes.com - especially on Japan, where the article was sourced: with startling if not libelous allegations of collusion and kickbacks between Japanese politicians, pro-North Koreans in Japan, and thus to North Korea.

Trouble is, Forbes' sources are dodgy too: hardliners who try to pin all possible dirt on Pyongyang. Fine by me, except that all too often their stories don't check out. Ill will is not enough. Especially in a time of danger, it really is important not to go flinging unsubstantiated charges around - even at easy targets such as North Korea. Besides, murky machinations in Tokyo back rooms are one thing, terrorism another.

But Forbes does have one real potential bombshell. Not on terrorism as such, but on another area which already came close to giving us a second Korean war. Yup, we're talking nukes. An ex-researcher at the now mothballed Yongbyon site, hiding in China and seeking to defect to the US, is said to confirm that North Korea's nuclear program is continuing underground, as is widely supposed. If she surfaces with the details, that could blow a big hole in the 1994 Agreed Framework (AF), under which a consortium of the US and others are building two shiny new light water reactors (LWRs) for the DPRK. In opposition Republicans were fierce critics of the AF, seeing it as rewarding Kim Jong-il for misbehavior instead of going after the plutonium he's suspected of having diverted for an all too predictable purpose.

In office, however, Bush endorsed the AF - before September 11. But in any case, a crunch is coming. Under the AF, the LWRs can't be built until and unless Pyongyang offers full access to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and accounts for all plutonium ever extracted at Yongbyon. The whole project is way late: after lengthy ground-clearing, LWR construction is just starting. The IAEA wants to get in before any more evidence is destroyed, but (surprise) Pyongyang is blocking this.

As always, the technicalities are complex - but the real issues are political. The main reason war loomed in mid-1994 was because Iraq had so fooled the IAEA that the US was determined to crack down on the next nuclear malefactor - which turned out to be North Korea. In the event Jimmy Carter saved the day by going to Pyongyang to talk to Kim Il-sung, and the AF defused the crisis - but did not resolve it.

So here it comes again, in the new post-September world. Once again, politics rules - and it could go either way. A US likely to soon have its hands full, if it boldly goes where no one since Alexander the Great has ever conquered, may be too busy to take on North Korea as well. It helps that inter-Korean dialogue has resumed. And if China is to be kept onside, Beijing will warn Bush to lay off the DPRK. But still, nukes are nukes. Then again, India and Pakistan have both just won the lifting of US sanctions imposed when they went nuclear. (Does that make you feel safer? Me neither.) So maybe Kim Jong-il can get away with it after all, provided he behaves on other fronts. Will he? Over to you, Dear Leader.

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