Our View on Potential North Korean Nuke Test
by James Na ~ October 4th, 2006. Filed under: Engagement, North Korea, Nuclear Proliferation, WMD, Washington Views. 
WaPo’s PostGlobal has our joint guest commentary on why we welcome a potential North Korean nuclear test:
Count us among those who ardently hope Kim Jong-il conducts a nuclear test.For decades, highly regarded diplomats have seen Kim Jong-il and his father as men who, but for their brutality and bellicosity, were motivated by the same interests and restraints that would guide normal diplomats were we in their place. Our policies have been shaped by our own concept of what a “rational” North Korean tyrant would do, based on the belief that Kim would rejoin the civilized world in return for incentives.
Read the whole thing here (please note that we had no hand in picking the title). It would be great if some of our readers could comment on the linked site.
[Update] Donald Gregg, former CIA Seoul station chief, later U.S. ambassador to ROK and now the president of Korea Society as well as a leading advocate for “engagement,” responded to our commentary (second comment below our commentary).
October 4th, 2006 at 7:46 pm
KJI is pushing nuclear brinkmanship as far as he can. He has very little to lose because NK is already in the dumps.
However, South Korea and Japan have a lot to lose from KJI’s nuclear gamble.
For those countries’ sake and for peace in Asia, the US should not be motivating KJI to pursue brinkmanship. Lift the financial sanctions and start talking to NK.
October 4th, 2006 at 7:51 pm
Whatever. I guess the U.S. and other countries should just allow NK to continue its agressive, black-mail deplomacy as well as its long list of illegal activities. Let them start conterfieting WON…
October 5th, 2006 at 12:13 am
Yes, talk to Kim Jong-il … about what color curtains he wants, and how many porno flicks he can transfer, when he moves into the former Marcos estate in Hawaii.
October 5th, 2006 at 12:36 am
Lift the financial sanctions while NK counterfeits US dollars……HAHAHAHAHA
Come on MiHwa, are you smoking something. KJI is behaving like a cornered dog. US, Japan, & Australia have him under sanctions. Roh is looking like a fool which each and every passing day because of KJI’s actions. Everytime NK does something stupid it makes the likelyhood of the GNP winning in 2007. The Chinese are letting refugees albeit a trickle to go the US because they are getting tired of Baby Kim and his antics. China likes the status quo too much to let KJI continously put them in diplomatic limbo when everytime he acts up the world looks to China to rein him in. New Japanese PM Abe is more of hardliner on NK than Koizumi ever was. So yeah KJI, go test you little nuclear arsenal because the last time I checked, human beings cant eat uranium.
October 5th, 2006 at 12:39 am
with each*
October 5th, 2006 at 10:05 am
Yea, little to lose except what little respect he has left with the few friendly nations to DPRK. I hope he does it. America has nothing to lose. This will, should be, his end game. Some people just can\’t see past their nose. KJI is one.
October 5th, 2006 at 10:28 am
i think i analogized KJI’s situation to a blackjack table.
he’s already lost about 37 hands in row. he went all in with the missile tests in July.
now he’s using house credit.
the sooner he does it, the sooner he falls.
just worried about seoul, though.
at least big bro has finally said something about it:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-10-05-north-korea_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA
and i still don’t care about Roh.
October 5th, 2006 at 10:43 am
And one other thing:
ROH IS SOUTH KOREA’S JIMMY CARTER
October 5th, 2006 at 12:40 pm
I don’t have a high opinion of Jimmy Carter, but even so, that statement is an insult to Carter.
At least Carter finished 59th out of 820 in his Naval Academy class, studied nuclear engineering and served under Adm. Rickover.
October 5th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
But Roh is an expert on human rights.
October 5th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
Donald Gregg must of been smoking some killer weed when he wrote his post. That is the dumbest fantasy I’ve read about NK relations in years.
October 5th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
I can’t believe Amb. Gregg actually said what he said. I’m responding.
October 5th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
Which part? Where he writes, “It sounds as though NK is trying to establish its credentials as a responsible nuclear power”?
He also goes on to blame, essentially, the Bush administration for this rather than KJI.
Whether he intended to sound like a KJI apologist or not, he sounds like one.
October 5th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
That’s funny, Steve.
Par for the course for Gregg, Oberdorfer, Harrison, etc.
October 5th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
I guess you have a point James, but remember how utterly helpless America was under Carter during the Iranian hostage situation? To some degree Roh is the same CUMBUYA dunce that Carter was and still is. For all the goodies SK has gotten from NK, NK is still trying to extort more and Roh just goes right along with it. The only thing Carter didnt have that Roh does is the vast left wing pro-NK activist on college campuses. As we approach December 2007, I am really hoping that there is a silent majority in SK and just those Uri bums out on their ass just like they did this past June in the local elections for putting SK in such danger and screwing up the ROK-USA alliance.
October 5th, 2006 at 3:53 pm
(switch-a-roo)*NK has gotten from SK
October 5th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
My response to Amb. Gregg, which still pending moderation:
Ambassador Gregg, respectfully, I can scarcely believe you wrote that. I feel compelled to add details and sources to the facts we refer to in the main post.
In February 2005, the New York Times reported that North Korea sold uranium hexafluoride to the A.Q. Khan Network, uranium we later recovered in Libya. North Korea (previous admissions notwithstanding) denies even having a uranium enrichment program, which might explain the Administration’s distrust.
There have been persistent reports that North Korea has assisted Iran’s nuclear program, in a technology-for-oil swap. This one is from the Boston Globe.
In December 2003, the New York Times reported that Kim Jong Il agreed to sell Saddam Hussein a complete SCUD factory, but that he reneged on the deal and kept Saddam’s down payment. The substance of that charge is corroborated in the final report of the Iraq Survey Group, starting at Page 121.
In February 2004, the Times even reported that North Korea’s first nuclear weapons test actually took place in Pakistan in 1998.
I could go on.
An off-day at the Ministry of Vitriol (executions to follow) seems like a leaky vessel in which to pour one’s hopes that North Korea has matured into a responsible steward of weapons of mass murder.
October 5th, 2006 at 5:03 pm
What does the political left and KJI have in common?
They both want to see the defeat of the political right.
KJI may be waiting for someone who will play ball with him, which is entirly possible. If the Democrats gain power in the mid-term elections of the USA, they could promote themselves as the “voice of reason” and hold out a plan that gives KJI his “face saving way out.” As long as the Bush administration is to blame for this crisis, both sides will be happy.
Remember the recent exchange between John Kerry and John Bolton?
Many Democrats and KJI still want to blame the “neoconservative war hawks” for the demise of the agreement Jimmy Carter made with Kim Il Sung.
If the Democrats can show they have a solution that NK is willing to agree to and that the “neoconservative war hawks” are the ones obstructing that solution, both sides would have a PR victory.
October 6th, 2006 at 10:56 am
Yep. Every time I vote for a Democrat - like Reagan’s former undersecretary of the Navy and Marine vet Jim Webb - I am secretly supporting Kim Jong-Il. Every time I open the Washington Post to get my latest talking points I secretly revel in the knowledge that I am undermining America and giving The Dear Leader reason to fight the Capitalist running dogs another day.
Yeesh.
October 6th, 2006 at 12:01 pm
I guess that my comment to WaPO didn’t make the cut:
Mr. Gregg says,
October 6th, 2006 at 1:16 pm
Pelagius,
I’m talking mainly about what KJI has in mind.
I’m sorry if I came across as demonizing the Democrats, in general. I just think many of them would do things that would sell out the country to win elections. The far left ones.
I think many on the far right would do something similar.
It’s ugly politics and winning at all costs that disgusts me. What do we do…. we’re human.
October 6th, 2006 at 2:28 pm
Japan is going to have a very interesting response to all of this….. Personally, I think they’re just itching to re-militarize and literally go ballistic. To them, it’s a consitutionally and politically correct way to kick some Korean ass.
October 6th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
Kevin,
I think you misconstrue the motives of people who advocate engagement as badly as those on the political left who claim that the political right pursues a confrontational policy because they love war and profit from it.
Both groups acknowledge that NK is a problem and the status quo does not work and are seeking remedies to it - they clearly differ on how to pursue that remedy, but I doubt either side has KJI’s best interests in mind.
October 6th, 2006 at 7:55 pm
Until now, the world has never witnessed a “government” broadcasting its intention to test nuclear weapons… all others have used the utmost secrecy to conceal operations. The reason is obvious… the ultimate beggar regime is looking for more handouts, and has concluded that it has nothing to lose by threatening nuclear blackmail on its neighbors. With Japan, the “strategy” is sure to backfire, but with the pitiful Seoul administration, incredibly deluded with “unification” hallucinations, the Pyongyang regime may indeed succeed in increasing blackmail revenue.
October 6th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
Gary,
Your point about announcing intentions to test is well take, however I belive North Korea is not in fact attempting to gain concessions. July’s missiles tests showed what the swift results of such behavior warrants. How much more so for nukes?
No, I
October 6th, 2006 at 10:20 pm
Hello Richardson,
I certainly agree with you that the disastrous results of the July missile tests would deter any rationally-minded leader from going further down a dead-end road, but the Pyongyang Pygmy has repeatedly demonstrated an uncanny ability to ignore overwhelming evidence that his brinkmanship game is self-defeating. The sane world can thank Roh Moo-hyun for this miserable state of affairs, given his unique talent for showering NK with aid in proportion to the insults it returns…
October 7th, 2006 at 4:39 am
Pelagius,
I also doubt anyone has KJI’s best interest in mind.
So, what exactly is it that you are talking about when you refer to “engagement?” And does this include the mere ‘potential’ use of force? That helps what many in America call “Keepin it real.”