Engaging North Korea

After being ignored by the Bush administration since Sept. 11, 2001, North Korea and its nuclear program are back at the negotiating table. For the past three years, six-party talks have been deadlocked as North Korea continued to accelerate its program. Monday, North Korea promised to drop all nuclear weapons and current nuclear programs and to get back to the Non-Proliferation Treaty as soon as possible. But faster than you could say "kimchee," the North Koreans demanded they be given a civilian nuclear reactor before they would end their nuclear weapons program. \nIn case you're not quite up to date, here's the deal: North Korea wants nuclear weapons and nuclear power to dig itself out of its ongoing economic disaster. Meanwhile, the United States, China, South Korea and Japan don't want North Korea to have nuclear weapons because Kim Jung-Il is an unbalanced, megalomaniacal dictator. And with North Korea's latest demand, it looks as if the recent agreement has hit another crippling hurdle.\nAnd so it goes. We negotiate. North Korea signs a piece of paper. They toss it out the window. Rinse, repeat. The first treaty was signed in 1993. The last was not agreed upon Monday. How can we ensure nuclear weapons aren't built in North Korea? We're obviously not going to give them a civilian nuclear reactor. Simply continuing the unending series of talks with North Korea with the same issues on the table (humanitarian aid and security guarantees) also gets us nowhere. And a preemptive strike, whether legal or not, is simply unfeasible, especially considering what happened the last time we invaded North Korea.\nWhat can we do? We can't just offer appeasement at every turn, and any agreement will have to include the dismantling of any and all nuclear activity in North Korea, as well as significant cutbacks in intermediate- to long-range missiles. If we are serious about eliminating nukes in North Korea, we have to take real action now and offer the North Koreans the one thing they can't get anywhere else: normalized relations with the West.\nSince 1953, when the trade embargo was enacted, North Korea has been bereft of any real economy. Many people in the country are malnourished, and official malfeasance is at a disgustingly unacceptable level. North Korea is using nuclear weapons to bargain with the world to help fix its country, but North Korea doesn't need security guarantees. It needs free trade and diplomacy with the West, making its nuclear aspirations far too risky if it really wants to right its ship.\nWe have every right to cut off North Korea. We're an independent nation-state, and it'll be a long time before North Korea directly threatens us. \nRegardless, we must engage North Korea because it's our duty as the world's most powerful country, a title we will not hold forever. We should quit acting superior and start being superior. If we're serious about eliminating nuclear threat, then we must open up North Korea with real engagement, not empty treaties.