nKorea: Diplomacy and Outcomes

OPINION: Obama Promises Bush III On Iran,  (Wall Street Journal)…John R. Bolton, January 2, 2009, Pg. 15

“You’d have to be an idiot to trust the North Koreans,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said recently … 

… the biggest problem ahead is countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

… The (six party) talks are classic multilateral diplomacy, pursued since 2003 with notable deference to North Korea. There’s been about as much engagement with Pyongyang as consenting adults can lawfully have.

Most recently in Beijing, Pyongyang refused to put in writing what U.S. negotiators say it committed to verbally — namely, verifying its commitment to abandon its nuclear program.

… The charade of verification was only one more ploy to squeeze out U.S. concessions, which Mr. Bush’s negotiators seemed prepared to give.

On Iran, also for over five years, Mr. Bush has endorsed vigorous European diplomacy. The Europeans offered every imaginable carrot to persuade Iran to drop its nuclear program in exchange for a different relationship with Europe and America. This produced no change in Iran’s strategic objective of acquiring deliverable nuclear weapons. The only real consequence is that Iran is five years closer to achieving that objective. It now has indigenous mastery over the entire nuclear fuel cycle.

Neither North Korea nor Iran is prepared to voluntarily give up nuclear or ballistic missile programs. 

Iran and North Korea achieved their objectives through diplomacy.  

Mr. Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of “Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations” (Simon & Schuster, 2007).