THE RISING EAST
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By Richard Halloran
In a subtle but unmistakable signal, President Bush has shoved the American confrontation with North Korea well down the list of Washington's priorities.
The president, in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, suggested that his focus on Iraq — obsession may not be too strong a word — has pushed his administration's quarrel with North Korea to the bottom of the radar screen.
Bush's language was as tough as ever: "The North Korean regime is using its nuclear program to incite fear and seek concessions. America and the world will not be blackmailed."
Associated Press
But the president then shifted gears to say, in effect, that the United States would follow the initiatives of South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia "to find a peaceful solution." He gave no indication that the United States would make any new offers to resolve the dispute.
U.S. Soldiers, stationed at Camp Bonifas, along the demilitarized zone with North Korea, watched President Bush's State of the Union address Tuesday. Bush said that the United States will seek a peaceful resolution of the standoff over North Korea's nuclear program.
Since last October, the Bush administration has been wrangling with the North Koreans over their plans to acquire nuclear arms after having foresworn them in several international commitments. In response, North Korea has demanded that the United States sign a nonaggression pact, arguing that American pledges not to invade are not good enough.
President Bush held out a promise of better things if the "Dear Leader" of North Korea, Kim Jong Il, would give up his nuclear aspirations. "Nuclear weapons will bring only isolation, economic stagnation, and continued hardship," the president said. "The North Korean regime will find respect in the world and revival for its people only when it turns away from its nuclear ambitions."
The lack of urgency in the president's statements suggested that the administration feels time is on the side of the United States and South Korea and that North Korea, left to its own devices, may collapse of economic corrosion. For the past decade, North Korea has experienced mismanagement, excessive military spending, and natural disasters. Between 1 million and 2 million people are believed to have starved to death.
Further, North Korea does not pose an imminent threat to South Korea or to U.S. forces in South Korea and Japan, despite the massed deployment of artillery and rocket launchers along the demilitarized zone that divides the peninsula, or the longer-range missiles in place deeper inside North Korea.
The reason: U.S. military forces in South Korea and Japan, plus those that could be brought to bear from the United States itself, would inflict grievous damage on North Korea if it should attack. That deterrent posture has been made publicly and privately clear to the North Koreans.
The danger in this aspect of the confrontation is that the Dear Leader and his generals might miscalculate, thinking that the United States has concentrated all its attention and military power on Iraq and would have nothing left to strike North Korea.
Associated Press
What President Bush didn't say in his address was equally illuminating and underscored his design to put off the clash with North Korea to a time after the question of Iraq has been settled, or to let the South Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, and Russians resolve these issues.
North Korean soldiers stand guard at Panmunjom. A South Korean delegation on a mission to North Korea to defuse nuclear tensions was not allowed to meet the North's leader, Kim Jong Il, and returned home Wednesday.
In particular, Bush did not repeat the "Axis of Evil" accusation, in which he lumped together Iraq, Iran and North Korea in his State of the Union address a year ago. He confined himself to asserting that, in Pyongyang, "an oppressive regime rules a people living in fear and starvation." He made no new offer to "talk any time, any place," as the administration has in the past, and set no deadline for reaching an agreement with Pyongyang.
The president's relatively bland remarks on North Korea especially contrasted with his lengthy, detailed, and sometimes impassioned condemnation of Iraq and its leader, Saddam Hussein.
The North Koreans waited two days to respond, then declared: "This policy speech is, in essence, an undisguised declaration of aggression." A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling Bush "an emotional backbiter," "a shameless charlatan," and "the incarnation of misanthropy." With its usual diplomacy by diatribe, Pyongyang asserted that the United States "is trying to mislead the public opinion by spreading the rumor that the DPRK is chiefly to blame for the nuclear issue. This is the height of shamelessness."
If the president, has indeed set a new policy of benign neglect toward North Korea, his administration seems likely to pay little heed to such fulminations. For Kim Jong Il, that may be the unkindest cut of all, to be ignored or brushed off as irrelevant.
Richard Halloran formerly was a New York Times correspondent in Asia and Washington. Reach him at oranhall@hawaii.rr.com.
