[Marxism] Why Washington must keep talks with N Korea afloat

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Gives a glimpse, especially important in the light of the 150-200,000
march in Washington, of the blow that the Iraqi people, at tremendous
sacrifice, have dealt to imperialism and the breathing space they have
given the people of the world.  Leaving his liberal politics aside, a
pretty good analysis by Jonathan Schell.
Fred Feldman



The Nation
Talks Without End
by JONATHAN SCHELL

[from the October 10, 2005 issue]

On September 19 at the six-party talks in Beijing, North Korea and the
United States signed a "joint statement" in which North Korea committed
itself to "abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs"
and rejoining the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. For its part the
United States agreed to "respect" North Korea's "sovereignty" and
"discuss at an appropriate time the subject of the provision of a
light-water reactor." Initially, this seemed cause for celebration,
especially by those who had opposed the Bush Administration's hard-line
policy and had favored negotiations. A New York Times editorial, for
instance, stated, "Diplomacy, it seems, does work after all."

The next day, however, the picture changed radically. The joint
statement--not a treaty--had left almost all questions of timing and
even of concrete substance up in the air. As Fred Kaplan pointed out in
Slate, the disarmament was to be accomplished only "at an early date,"
while the discussions (not the provision) on the light-water reactor
were to begin "at an appropriate time"--two masterpieces of imprecision,
especially in combination. For the United States, which has long
adamantly opposed providing any reactor, an appropriate date might be
the year 2300, or such time as the regime of North Korea's President Kim
Jong Il has collapsed, or never. But then North Korea's official news
service announced, in its characteristic vividly insulting prose, that
"the U.S. should not even dream of the issue of [North Korea's]
dismantlement of its nuclear deterrent before providing" a light-water
reactor.

The challenge was fundamental--an obvious deal-breaker, not only for the
Bush Administration but surely for any imaginable US Administration. The
United States is hardly likely to provide nuclear technology to Kim Jong
Il--a dictator George W. Bush has said he "loathes" and, North Korean
style, called a "pygmy"--as long as he possesses nuclear arms.
Nevertheless, in statements as surprising in their way as North Korea's
bombshell, the United States made light of the news. "I think we will
not get hung up on this statement," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
said offhandedly. "We will stick to the text of the Beijing statement,
and I believe we can make progress if everybody sticks to what was
actually agreed to." (Of course, the written agreement in fact has
nothing to stick to, as it deliberately left all questions of timing up
in the air.) The United States' chief negotiator, Assistant Secretary of
State Christopher Hill, was even more insouciant. In an interview on The
NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, he called North Korea's defiance
"inconvenient"--twice, so no one could doubt that the word had been
chosen carefully.

What is going on? Why did the tiny, poor dictatorship, proud possessor
of a small nuclear arsenal, on one day agree to give it up and the next
throw up a fatal obstacle to the process, and why did the world's
self-described superpower and scourge of dictatorships and "evil" smile
and pretend that nothing had happened?

A conventional interpretation might hold that the promises of both sides
are sincere, but as in many negotiations, the path is rocky. We can hope
that is so. But another view is possible. Sometimes the continuation of
more or less open-ended negotiations is itself a goal of one or both
parties. In the current case, both sides had in fact reached an impasse
in their policies. The Bush Administration, after all, had once had a
very clear and resolute global antiproliferation policy. It was military
pre-emption and "regime change." The policy was announced with fanfare
by Bush in his 2002 State of the Union address, in which he said, "The
United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous
regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons"--and
named Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the prime offenders, linking them as
the "axis of evil." At the top of the list was Iraq, against which war
was duly waged. That war has failed decisively, and in at least two
ways. First, weapons of mass destruction--the war's justification--of
course have not been found, and, second, the US military machine has
been stretched to the breaking point. It is not fit for further wars,
whether in the name of nonproliferation or anything else.

For the Iraq War was never only about Iraq. It was also a demonstration
project for the wider policy of stopping proliferation and otherwise
extending American power by military means. To understand the Bush
Administration's predicament now, we have to imagine what the situation
would have been if the Iraq War had gone as the Administration hoped--if
the WMD had been present and duly removed and the regime replaced by an
acceptable new one. In that case, there is every reason to suppose that
the United States would now be turning the screws on North Korea. Or it
would perhaps have done so as early as 2003, after the troops had quit
the flower-strewn streets of Iraq. Certainly, the White House would not
now be swallowing North Korean insults in its eagerness to get back to
negotiations.

North Korea, for its part, had for most of this time played its hand
more successfully. While the United States was failing in Iraq, North
Korea was withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, turning
the plutonium in its reactor into bomb-grade materials, and most likely
creating a parallel uranium enrichment program and building up its
nuclear arsenal, and announcing itself to be a nuclear power--all
without receiving so much as a slap on the wrist from the international
community. But more recently that policy, too, was threatening to exact
a cost. If the six-party talks broke down and North Korea were held
responsible, then international sanctions might follow. Military action
by the United States, though unlikely, could not be altogether ruled
out. The solution? A "breakthrough" that was not a true breakthrough, a
"road map" (to borrow a relevant phrase from the Middle East) faint and
vague enough to provide obstacles for infinite delays. Meanwhile, the
nuclear buildup could proceed.

The high hopes raised by the agreement may one day be realized. For now,
the United States and North Korea have succeeded only in creating, each
for its own reasons, the appearance of an agreement. They do not yet
have an agreement.


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