Tick
Here’s the entire text of an AP wire story:
North Korea startled a six-nation conference in China on East Asian security by announcing its intentions to formally declare its possession of nuclear weapons and to carry out a nuclear test, an administration official said Thursday.
North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Yong Il also told the gathering that his country has the means to deliver nuclear weapons, an apparent reference to the North’s highly developed missile program.
The comments cast a pall over Thursday’s plenary session, which included representatives of the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia, in addition to North Korea.
Last week I wrote:
Kim has all kinds of cards to play, which means these talks will be a six-ring circus featuring nuclear weapons on the flying trapeze.
Yep. Crazy bluff and bluster is North Korea’s preferred negotiating stance. The question is: Does it help them?
We’re trying to negotiate away Kim’s nukes. Kim is trying to keep his program, while getting dollars, fuel oil, and food from us. If he scares us enough, he might just get what he wants, so, yes, the Raving Loon Strategem is probably his best option.
The good news is, the Bush Administration has yet to flinch when dealing the the DPRK — so Kim’s best option is still a slim one.
But what about our goal of getting (or if you’re a dreamer, “maintaining”) a nuke-free North Korea? Frankly, our chances are about the same as a drunk cheerleader keeping her panties on at a frat party.
So why do we bother? Simple: Time. We have it, and Kim doesn’t. If he’s being a maniac at the negotiating table, then he’s not being maniacal on the south side of the DMZ. Meanwhile, the clock on his doomed regime keeps ticking.
(Steven Den Beste covered all this a while back much better than I ever could, but his site won’t load up today — so no link just yet.)
UPDATE: Here’s the link to the Den Beste essay.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Den Beste has more, and argues we accomplished more than just keeping Kim busy for a couple of days.
The real import of the NK foreign minister
One word: coup
Overheard in the hallway:
Kim: “We possess nuclear weapons. We have the means to deliver nuclear weapons, through a highly developed missile program.”
Bush: “Really? No shit? So do we.”
Kim: [silence]
Another item I saw in the news but didn’t see here or at SDB’s site:
The Russians said their experts are skeptical as to whether NK has nuclear weapons. I think this was either the same day or the day before NK’s “test” announcement.
I retract that – I saw it here but in an earlier post.
Interesting timing, I wonder how the Russians will respond? Both they and the Chinese seem to have preferred NK to continue the “Clinton Strategy”: deny, deny, deny even when everyone knows you’re lying.
Are they willing to continue providing NK political cover?
China nor the Russians can afford the risk of giving the Norks political cover.
China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, none can afford to allow this to go on.
Given the way that the Norks have an entire airfield, complete with MIGs buried deep under solid granite does anyone really think that their Nuke program is vulnerable to either a special forces strike or conventional bombs?
I would wager that the Nork’s Nukes (sounds like a name for a garage band) are buried so deep that even a single thermonuclear weapon would not take them out. I submit that we’d have to send a big one fused for ground-burst to dig a crater and then, probably at least one more to go off and dig the crater deeper.
That half of the world cannot afford that much fallout.
The question is not how many North Koreans we are willing to trade for our West Coast (all of them). The question is how many of their own populations are China, Russia, Japan and South Lorea willing to trade for the luxury of not having to reign in the poof haired madman
Is there anyone in the world that does not believe that George W. Bush has the stones to pull the trigger?