Posted on: Sunday, October 3, 2004

EDITORIAL
Kerry gets it right on North Korea

One of the healthier things to come out of the first debate between President Bush and challenger John Kerry was the amount of time spent on the issue of North Korea.

As we have argued many times, Washington's focus on the Middle East and, more specifically, Iraq has led to a dismaying lack of focus on Korea and the threat of war there.

We would never argue that the Bush administration is unaware or unconcerned about the dangers looming on the Korean peninsula. Indeed they have an able point man on this specific topic in the person of Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, formerly with the Pacific Forum in Honolulu.

The issue, as Kerry pointed out so forcefully, is a matter of focus and approach. The Bush administration has blundered on this issue, driven by an understandable distaste for North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

But these are not matters that should be driven by personality.

When intelligence sources concluded that North Korea was experimenting with uranium-based weapons programs, Washington pulled the plug on a relatively successful arms inspection and control regime aimed at the far more dangerous and imminent plutonium enrichment effort.

The result: Communication between the United States and North Korea broke down and the North Korean government now makes a credible argument that it possesses, and is ready to use, nuclear weapons.

President Bush argues that the only way to back down from this terrifying standoff is to work through six-party talks involving China, Japan and other nations as well as North Korea and the United States.

Kerry sensibly recognizes that while the six-party talks are useful, particularly for the influence China brings to the table, there is no reason to abandon one-on-one talks as well.

Paranoid North Korea believes the United States holds hostile intentions toward it and has concluded the only way to avoid a pre-emptive strike by the Americans is to bristle its nuclear arsenal.

Kerry's debate comments suggest he would be ready to talk in whatever format works, be it unilateral or multilateral. And he recognizes the importance of returning arms inspectors to the North.

On this issue, Kerry is right.