Pay no attention to that country behind the curtain
Page January 3rd, 2008
So, welcome to 2008. Seems like everyone is taking stock, looking back at 2007 and gazing into their respective crystal balls to predict what this year might hold.
The International Atomic Energy Agency is no exception. They’ve issued a staff report, “2007 Year in Review: Looking Back on Nuclear´s Future“, which is chock-full of obscure news (like an update on reports of illicit trafficking in nuclear materials) as well as bigger headline-makers, like addressing the complex issue of nuclear fuel and proliferation risks. Of course, the Bush administration cannot hear the word “nuclear” without immediately frothing at the mouth and saying “Iran”, with almost complete disregard for any other critical international nuclear issues.
One of these issues is North Korea, the country that actually made and tested a nuclear bomb in 2006, although it was very small and basically a fizzle, not a bang (it was less than a kiloton).
The Bush administration immediately scrambled and scheduled a press conference. They came up with a few good “we weren’t asleep at the switch, really, we weren’t” statements, condensed by Fox News into “press conferences for dummies” captions.
Fast forward to 2007. North Korea’s nuclear timeline has been a rocky road, but a breakthrough was made in March 2007, when an IAEA delegation arrived in North Korea - by invitation. It had been five years since the IAEA had been in North Korea, so this was indeed a historic event. Talks continued in June, and by July 18, the IAEA had confirmed that all reactors at Yongbyong had been shut down.
Katie Mounts, a Policy Associate at the nonproliferation and national security think tank Council for a Livable World, summed up the diplomatic successes nicely:
President Bush’s “Axis of Evil” may soon be one less. In no small victory for diplomacy and non-proliferation, recent six party talks yielded a nuclear deal with North Korea.
Under the deal, North Korea agrees to disable all activities at its main nuclear complex in Pyongyang and to report on all of its current nuclear programs by the end of this year. NSC spokesperson Gordon Johndroe stated, “These second-phase actions effectively end the DPRK’s production of plutonium – a major step towards the goal of achieving the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” reported the New York Times.
Beyond the more immediate success in North Korea, this agreement is a victory for advocates of diplomacy in the face of nuclear disagreements, most notably the case of Iran. Bush’s newfound commitment to diplomacy through [Ambassador] Christopher Hill has resulted in what provocative language and threats of military action have not in Iran: the first major steps toward transparency and denuclearization.
But the saga is by no means over, and is far from simple. North Korea had until December 31, 2007 to completely declare its nuclear programs, as well as disable its facilities in a timely manner. From Jeff Lewis at Arms Control Wonk:
As expected, North Korea missed the deadline for “providing a complete and correct declaration of its nuclear programs.”
I say “as expected” in part because this is what Chris Hill told Congress in a closed briefing, according to Chris Nelson, and what South Korea’s Foreign Minister has said publicly.
At issue, as we have long worried, is what US officials now call the “Uranium Enrichment Program” or UEP. North Korea, according to diplomatic sources in Seoul, “remains unchanged in its denial of the existence of a UEP” — notwithstanding what Glenn Kessler reported to be evidence of uranium contamination on smelted tubing. (David Albright points to the possibility of contamination from other sources; His background piece on the Nork tubes is the best.)
The State Department also claims that North Korea is “slowing down the process of disablement.”
Needless to say, if history is any indicator, talks with North Korea regarding its nuclear program will certainly be something the next president of the United States will have to deal with. The nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations has a nice summary of each candidate’s position on North Korea’s nuclear program (it’s from October but is still relevant). What is noteworthy is that most of the Republican candidates have only soundbites (Mike Huckabee doesn’t even have a stance), and the Democratic candidates have firm convictions and non-military proposals.
In conclusion, the future is still somewhat murky; for example, verification of North Korea’s plutonium is anything but a simple process. But what John Bolton called “Pyongyang Pussyfooting” is what I call “diplomacy”. It’s obvious what works best, isn’t it? We’ve made a lot of progress in a year. Let’s hope things continue to move in the right direction.
