Is it a fact or strategic denial and deception for Victor Cha to say that President Bush was never about “regime collapse” in North Korea? Is he differentiating between regime “collapse” and regime “change”? Christopher Hill’s approach to the Six-Party Talks was – I thought – simply giving Kim Jong-il enough rope. North Korea’s expected (second) reneging of the 13 February deal (DOC) over admitting to its uranium enrichment program will be the final judgment for that theory, and the Bush administrations approach to North Korea:

Cha also said that North Korea’s misunderstanding of its own finances had contributed to the delay. “They didn’t know what bank accounts they wanted this stuff moved to,” he said. “They didn’t have the necessary information. They didn’t have the release forms. They had no understanding of the financial details.”

[…]

Cha also cautioned North Korea not to read too much into Bush’s recent remarks calling Pyongyang a dictatorship. “He feels very strongly about human rights and that is why he says things like that. But he understands that we have to find a pragmatic solution,” Cha said of his former boss. “The president was never about regime collapse in the North. The military option is a non-starter…” He noted that UN resolution 1718, adopted after the North’s nuclear test last year, remains in effect, and that sanctions already in place could be toughened. (emphasis added)

(On a side note, I found this on a Google image search for “Victor Cha.” Nice shirt, Cha-Cha guy.)