North Korea giving Syria nuclear materials

From The Times Online:

Israeli commandos seized nuclear material of North Korean origin during a daring raid on a secret military site in Syria before Israel bombed it this month, according to informed sources in Washington and Jerusalem.

The attack was launched with American approval on September 6 after Washington was shown evidence the material was nuclear related, the well-placed sources say.

They confirmed that samples taken from Syria for testing had been identified as North Korean. This raised fears that Syria might have joined North Korea and Iran in seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.

Israeli special forces had been gathering intelligence for several months in Syria, according to Israeli sources. They located the nuclear material at a compound near Dayr az-Zwar in the north.

Evidence that North Korean personnel were at the site is said to have been shared with President George W Bush over the summer. A senior American source said the administration sought proof of nuclear-related activities before giving the attack its blessing.

Diplomats in North Korea and China believe a number of North Koreans were killed in the strike, based on reports reaching Asian governments about conversations between Chinese and North Korean officials.

Syrian officials flew to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, last week, reinforcing the view that the two nations were coordinating their response.

Right now the problem is North Korea and Iran. If we put out the fire before it spreads from those two sources all will probably be well, however if we allow it to spread there will be no containment.

One crisis off the table - for now

From The New York Times:

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- U.N. inspectors have verified that North Korea shut down its nuclear reactor, the watchdog agency's chief said Monday, the first on-the-ground achievement toward scaling back Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions since the international standoff began in late 2002.

The main U.S. envoy on the issue, meanwhile, said that the United States is looking to build on momentum and will start deliberations on removing North Korea from a list of terrorism-sponsoring states.

North Korea pledged in an international accord in February to shut the reactor at Yongbyon and dismantle its nuclear programs in return for 1 million tons of oil and political concessions. However, it stalled for several months because of a separate, but now-resolved dispute with the U.S. over frozen bank funds.

There has been speculation all along that all Kim was ever after was a payoff. This makes some sense as the primary goal of North Korean government policy is the survival of the regime with Kim in charge. And the primary function of the regime seems to be to keep Kim living in luxury surrounded by all the gourmet food, expensive liquor and young girls he can handle.

Someone willing to starve his own people to the point of cannibalism so that he can have a room full of 80 gigabyte iPods isn't likely to engage in the kind of foreign adventurism that could get the US Marines landing on his doorstep.

While the Iranian mullahs believe that provoking a nuclear attack upon themselves would trigger the return of the hidden Imam and bring about the total victory of Islam Kim believes that provoking a nuclear attack upon himself would just get him killed and he wouldn't be able to enjoy any more single malt scotch and Cuban cigars.

Of course Kim will run through with whatever we give him and start building nukes again when he needs more. And there is the danger of what will happen when he finally drops dead (or is encouraged to drop dead by his Army). If a serious bad-guy gets control in Pyongyang things could get dicey. Red China very much does not want a unified and free Korea on its border and the US will protect its South Korean ally (unless a Jimmy Carter clone is in the White House).

Americans need to choose their next president carefully. We need someone who realizes that isolationism is no longer an option and is willing to use both the carrot and the stick in equal measure.

Sombody blinked, Kim or US?

From The Washington Post:

BEIJING, Feb. 13 -- Envoys from six nations reached a tentative agreement early Tuesday on the first steps toward North Korea's nuclear disarmament, a potential breakthrough in talks that have faltered repeatedly since 2003.

The chief U.S. negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill, qualified the draft accord as "excellent" but declined to provide details. He said it was being submitted to all six governments and, pending their formal approval, would be ratified at a meeting scheduled later Tuesday in Beijing.

"We would like to think that we can all agree on this," Hill said at a briefing for reporters. "We feel it is an excellent draft, so I don't think we would be the problem."

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, also suggested the tentative agreement was likely to gain formal approval by the six governments, including North Korea. He cited "extraordinarily strenuous efforts" in negotiations that lasted through the night, and said the delegates would gather again later Tuesday "to confirm the progress we have made."

[. . .]

The tentative agreement lays out the first concrete steps that would put into practice an accord reached in September 2005, in which the Pyongyang government pledged to dismantle its entire nuclear program. According to diplomats involved in five days of arduous talks here, the opening move would be for North Korea to close down its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and readmit international nuclear inspectors in exchange for energy aid.

In that regard, Tuesday's accord is expected to resemble an earlier bargain with North Korea, the Agreed Framework reached in 1994 during the Clinton administration but renounced eight years later during the Bush administration. Under that deal, North Korea pledged to freeze and eventually dismantle its reactor in return for 500,000 tons a year of heavy fuel oil.

If this is for real and by that I mean that the North Koreans abide by it then it is as significant victory for President Bush. It was Mr. Bush, you will remember, who steadfastly insisted on the six-party talks and refused to negotiate one-on-one with the North Koreans. The President realized that there is no nation on earth with more influence with the North Korean regime than China and that their participation would be key to forging any agreement which North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il would honor.

Of course the Post has to go on to point out that the deal is similar to the agreement reached during the Clinton administration:

In that regard, Tuesday's accord is expected to resemble an earlier bargain with North Korea, the Agreed Framework reached in 1994 during the Clinton administration but renounced eight years later during the Bush administration. Under that deal, North Korea pledged to freeze and eventually dismantle its reactor in return for 500,000 tons a year of heavy fuel oil.

The 1994 deal was the one negotiated behind the scenes by Jimmy Carter and dropped into the Clinton administration's lap. The Post seems to be implying that the agreement was "renounced" by the Bush administration. It was not. The North Koreans never honored the agreement. To them it was nothing more than a ruse to gain time and milk the West for some much needed supplies.

Carter may well have been stupid enough to believe that Kim would keep his word, or maybe not. I doubt that he cares how many people have to die to put another Nobel Peace Prize in his pocket, but either way I'm sure that Bill Clinton was not fooled.

As far as Bubba was concerned it simply took a thorny problem and pushed it onto the next administration. This was all a part of his master plan to coast through his term in office with high approval numbers. Anything difficult was to be avoided so as to keep the public blissfully asleep, mesmerized by the climbing values (on paper) of their portfolios.

It worked. Bill's numbers never went below 60% even during his impeachment trial and he never had to miss even one pole polishing session in the Oval Office. But it did leave a rather large and dangerous problem for the grownups to solve when he got through splashing around in the shallow end of the pool.

Of course not everyone is happy:

Despite a sense of achievement in Beijing, the deal was expected to face criticism in Washington, with Democrats charging the administration allowed North Korea to gain nuclear weapons through poor diplomacy in recent years and conservatives saying it shows weakness at a critical moment.

How Mr. Bush could be blamed for the inevitable and easily foreseen results of an agreement which was made six years before he even took office is not explained. The Democrat leadership has to try to pour cold water on this because it is a problem caused by a Democrat administration and she who was "co-president" during the years when North Korea was allowed to begin its Nuclear program is seeking the White House next year. In the left's minds the American public most definitely does not need to be reminded that all Clintons are good for is making dangerous messed which adults have to follow them around cleaning up.

One caveat in this is that John Bolton is also criticising the agreement and that is potentially a bad sign. However Mr. Bolton is no longer part of the administration and is not privy to any understanding which might exist between the United States and China regarding exactly how short a leash that the Chinese will allow Kim. After all the US has a very large bargaining chip which it can use in back-channel negotiations in that we have the ability to create a nuclear armed Japan overnight.

The exact nature of the six-party agreement will emerge over the next few days or weeks and I do not imagine that Kim will be allowed to skate on his compliance this time so I am tentively happy.