This week Richard Armitage, United States Deputy Secretary of State until 2004, made a few public statements about what he thinks North Korea will do in the months ahead:

“I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that (North Korean leader) Kim Jong-il is going to try muddle through, notwithstanding the horror it brings to his own people. . . I think they are likely to wait it out until the next administration.”

He also said that the chances of a North Korean nuclear test are “better than 50/50.”

A few points in regard to North Korea’s waiting game. First, that depends on who is in charge after the next election; North Korea would have much less of a chance of fooling a Republican administration, but has had better luck getting something for nothing from the Democrats.

Second, however, is that it’s not a given that North Korea will deal with a new administration, Republican or Democrat, especially if they adhere to the principle of complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization (CVID) of North Korea. If CVID is abandoned, so can North Korea’s strategic disengagement.

Third, I think it’s blazingly obvious to anyone who has even a passing knowledge of the issues that North Korea is not interested in dealing with the Bush administration. A brief glimmer of hope was offered last 19 September, but North Korea reneged on that deal one day later. A guess of better than “50/50” on a nuclear test is also amazingly lackluster. This brings up motive; why is he speaking about this now?

Perhaps to get his name in headlines that don’t include his responsibility for the Valerie Plame leak, or his alleged threat the Pakistan. Given his claim to have forgotten exactly what was said to Robert Novak, his claim that he didn’t threaten Pakistan a couple years prior to that is also questionable – Novak says “deceptive.”
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