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COMMENTARY
December 28, 2002
Korean meltdown
The government of North Korea yesterday announced it would expel the three remaining monitors of the International Atomic Energy Agency from its Yongbyon nuclear complex and restart a reactor that is almost useless for generating electricity but designed to maximize plutonium production. This after admitting it was producing nuclear weapons in defiance of an international agreement through which it had received $5 billion in aid from the United States plus a great deal of free nuclear power technology. (The agreement made by Bill Clinton in 1994 and brokered by Jimmy Carter was possibly the most foolish ever made by a U.S. president.) We cannot know for certain what North Korea's production capacity will be. With all systems working it could be in the order of 50 weapons a year each about 20 times the destructive capacity of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Indeed the IAEA is estimating that there may only be a two-month "window" before North Korea is able to begin nuclear mass production. On the other hand a bluff is as good as a bomb for the purposes of nuclear blackmail. The North Koreans may shortly be in a position to dictate terms to its neighbours simply by making a plausible claim to have the means to annihilate them. There is one big difference between North Korea and Iraq. Saddam Hussein is evil but not insane. When his bluffs are called he at least goes through the motions of re-admitting U.N. weapons inspectors and turns his attention to playing games with them. He takes huge risks and has made grave miscalculations but is not actually suicidal. We cannot assume as much when dealing with the strange post-Communist regime of Pyongyang. Each time their bluff has been called they have raised the stakes higher. It is entirely possible that the rulers of North Korea -- whoever they are for there is evidence the chairman Kim Jong-il is not really in charge of his politburo -- are insane. They are doing things that make no sense at all in their situation. Threatened with war they might actually respond by trying to incinerate Seoul and Tokyo. The U.S. is presently rushing anti-missile technology to Japan -- at Japan's own request. This could conceivably save Tokyo a flight of more than 1 000 kilometres from Wonsan on North Korea's east coast. But South Korea's capital Seoul is almost walking distance from the DMZ between the two Koreas and is practically indefensible. It has 20 million people. This is why President Bush's diplomatic efforts have been so understated compared to his efforts against the Saddam regime in Iraq. He is acting as one does with men armed and crazy. Meanwhile South Korea is between governments. In the close-fought presidential election of Dec. 19 Roh Moo-hyun a former labour lawyer and human rights activist emerged as the next president but taking office not until late February. A member of the outgoing President Kim Dae-jung's party and a supporter of its so-far unrequited "Sunshine Policy" towards the North he caused some consternation to the U.S. during the campaign with remarks that like Gerhard Schroeder's during the recent German election could be interpreted as anti-American. There were several surprisingly virulent anti-American demonstrations by students during the campaign. The U.S. has had tens of thousands of troops stationed in South Korea since saving the country from a Communist invasion two generations ago (with allies including Canada). They are there as a "tripwire". Even with the South Korean army they are not sufficiently numerous nor well-enough armed to handle a direct North Korean invasion (the North has more than one million men under arms and an economy built exclusively around its war machine). The very presence of U.S. troops is the guarantee that the U.S. would not let such an attack stand. But as an old Korean proverb has it Though there is love downwards, there is no love upwards, and the Koreans are tired of living under U.S. protection. Nobody's gratitude lasts 50 years. Worse the U.S. presence in South Korea has ceased to offer a tripwire but may indeed now be an additional encouragement to North Korean recklessness. The GIs now look more like hostages and as the recent election showed their presence can be used by the North to manipulate public opinion in the South. Note the announcement North Korea would proceed with plutonium production came right after the South's election was over; that during the campaign itself the North did not take threatening actions. They wanted Mr. Roh to win and did a reasonably good job of undercutting his adversary Lee Hoi-chang an unambiguous opponent of President Kim's sunshine policy. Mr. Roh was moreover able to win the squeaker despite a series of major corruption scandals in the governing party. The idea that the presence of the U.S. troops is actually the cause rather than the antidote to North Korea's aggression has gained through frequent North Korean repetition and of course plays well to anti-American sentiment around the world. The argument that President Bush's "axis of evil" speech provoked their present behaviour I would have thought too silly for anyone to believe but as I write I'm listening to the BBC. I am reminded of George Orwell's old truism that there is nothing you can say so demented that you will not get a choir of intellectuals singing along. The problem in Korea is that people are scared and have every reason to be. The election of President Roh may therefore turn out to be a good thing. Yesterday the president-elect made a very strong statement demanding that North Korea return to its non-proliferation agreements. He can be more effective galvanizing South Korean public opinion from his side of the political spectrum. President Kim has also said there can be no compromise over nuclear weapons. If these leaders stand up to the North South Korean public opinion will likely rally behind what may prove a nerve-jarring course. If they don't I would expect South Korea to enter a desperate course of appeasement with wild outpourings of anti-Americanism. For once a public policy is based openly on fear and on fear only a society tends to disintegrate. My guess is that the South Korean fort will hold but it is not a certainty. And if South Korea cracks then Japan will follow; for Japan has very weak leadership. The U.S. has been seeking Chinese and Russian support along with Japanese and South Korean to fully isolate the North Korean regime -- for the only conceivable peaceful resolution to this nuclear "brinkmanship" (the term used by the IAEA) requires cutting the country off entirely from any external aid. The U.S. is not getting any help however and I understand the new Chinese politburo under Hu Jintao has even suggested that Chinese co-operation in Korea will depend on U.S. concessions over Taiwan. It is a signal reminder that Communist China remains a deadly enemy of the free world. The Russian response has been Your problem, not ours, good luck with it. And the scale of the problem goes beyond the regional threat. There is now much evidence of collaboration between Iran Pakistan and North Korea in the development of both nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems. Pakistan relied on North Korea to develop its missile programme in return for Pakistan's help with nuclear technology -- an arrangement which was continuing well after the "axis of evil" speech. We are now learning that even the Clinton administration was aware of the relationship and chose to ignore it. A similar arrangement exists between Iran and North Korea supplemented by Russian help in Iran's very ambitious programme to build new nuclear reactors. And North Korea continues to be the leading supplier of missiles to other rogue states in the Middle East: to Syria Libya Sudan and recently Saudi Arabia. The interception of a North Korean vessel carrying Scuds and chemicals to Yemen earlier this month illustrates the depth of the problem. Secretary of State Colin Powell decided on short notice to let the shipment through on grounds that it was not technically illegal and that the U.S. needed Yemeni co-operation in hunting down Al Qaeda forces in Yemen itself. Those Scuds are now at least theoretically flagged: but there is every reason to believe they were meant for further transfer to either Iraq or Syria (at a handsome profit to the Yemeni middlemen. Yemen has no practical use for Scuds at the moment). The U.S. was in this specific case and has been in its dealings with Pakistan and at large left playing "monkey in the middle". It has no choice short of going to war with almost everyone at once but to deal with various duplicitous regimes against regimes that are open enemies. Each of its "clients" is attempting to arm itself to the point where it can at least expect a U.S. buy-off and at most promote itself to regional power -- after the Americans have removed its rivals. There are also huge sums of money to be made in the proliferation business -- which seems to be the chief Russian motive for being fast and loose. For the Bush administration it is like playing 20 chess games simultaneously against opponents all of whom are cheating. Cutting now to the chase the U.S. must show that it can shut down the North Korean connexion to get the upper hand with its duplicitous Middle Eastern allies -- the ones it needs to squeeze the Islamist terror networks operating on their soil. The conflict is thus not limited to the immediate range of North Korea's missiles. It becomes clearer that "regime change" is the only possible way to obtain this result. But no regime change can be achieved in North Korea without putting quite literally tens of millions of lives at risk. The threat should have been dealt with in 1994 when it was more manageable; it is now becoming radically less manageable day by day. If there is a peaceful way out of this impasse I do not know what it is. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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