GETTING TO "NO"

Bush should stay the course with North Korea (Paul Crespo, July 11, 2003, townhall.com)

Despite sometimes hysterical commentary that Bush has been ignoring North Korea's manufactured nuclear "crisis" and perhaps even escalating it with his "Axis of Evil" talk, Bush has been pursuing an assertive but low-key strategy that seems to be working. While panicky commentators continue to demand that the US engage Korean despot Kim Jong-il directly to avoid a worsening situation, Bush is staying the course of multilateral pressure and diplomatic isolation.

Unfortunately, all too-easily frightened analysts and editorialists fail to realize that caving in to blackmail is never a good negotiating tactic -- even more so when the threats are nuclear.

Fortunately Bush understands this and has avoided making the same strategic mistake Clinton made in 1994. Then Clinton, with Jimmy Carter's help, simply rewarded North Korea's threatening behavior, appeasing Kim Jong-il's equally belligerent father - Kim il-Song -- with economic incentives and ''peaceful'' nuclear technology. [...]

While some argue that going to the negotiating table is not the same as capitulating, Bush realizes that the North Korean goal is to engage the US in a restrictive process. Simply getting America to the table with threats continues the North Korean game, and allows them to put more pressure on the US to make concessions. Regardless of how aggressively the US was to negotiate, the North Koreans would continue their nuclear program and weapons proliferation while the US simply responded diplomatically - a no-win situation.

So Bush isn't playing this defensive game.

That seems a particularly hard point for folks to process, that--especially in geopolitics--just getting to the negotiating table means someone has already won and someone lost. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 11, 2003 8:11 AM