The World : Offer North Korea a Package Deal to Drop Its Nuclear Program

WASHINGTON —  Is Bill Clinton’s major foreign-policy nightmare--a confrontation with a North Korea armed with nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles--over? Don’t pop those champagne corks, yet.

North Korea’s 11th-hour decision to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to resume inspections of its seven declared nuclear facilities merely averts an immediate clash. While the political furor over the nuclear issue has subsided, the dispute is far from resolved: The potential risks--ranging from another Korean war to instability and a nuclear arms race in Asia, to a collapse of an Orwellian family dynasty and chaos on the peninsula--are as large as ever.

Indeed, if North Korea had not blinked, the IAEA’s board of governors, which meets tomorrow in Vienna, would have had little choice but to declare that North Korea had violated its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty commitment. The agency would then have had to refer the matter to the U.N. Security Council, which probably would have imposed some economic sanctions.

If IAEA agents are actually permitted to inspect the facilities, the nuclear issue will come back to where it was a year ago. Then, the agency had demanded to see two suspected nuclear-waste sites that satellite photos revealed North Korea had hidden from it.

It was this demand for a “special inspection” that triggered the current imbroglio. North Korea threatened to become the first nation to withdraw from the non-proliferation regime, refusing to allow the IAEA to continue its regular inspections. Now we are back to negotiating over access to the waste sites amid continuing suspicions that North Korea is secretly trying to build nuclear weapons.

North Korea’s success in dragging out the crisis is due as much to a confused U.S. policy as it is to Pyongyang’s subterfuge. The large stakes and enormous complexity of the issue; competing bureaucratic interests producing a rash of leaks and conflicting public statements, and the perception, if not reality, that nobody is in charge--all sent mixed signals to North Korea’s leaders. Until November, the Administration had pursued an incremental approach, with no sense of what the end game might be. Then Clinton announced he would pursue a comprehensive approach.

But to date, Washington has not said what is in the comprehensive package or even if there has been agreement on one. If Pyongyang showed up at a meeting and offered to trade its nuclear program--the only “card” the destitute and isolated regime has to play--Washington, in return, could only offer “another meeting.” If North Korea permits the IAEA to inspect the waste sites, implements its December, 1991, agreement with South Korea to create a denuclearized Korean Peninsula--including an intrusive challenge-inspection regime--and accounts for all its plutonium, the United States and its key allies, South Korea and Japan, should reciprocate.

North Korea’s concerns--political legitimacy, economic help and security assurances--are fundamental to its survival. The nuclear issue is inextricably bound up with the reunification of Korea. To succeed, U.S. policy must address the proliferation and the East Asian issues simultaneously.

So what is to be done? First, there is a need for a special coordinator on Korea who would report directly to the President. Whether it is North Korea acquiring a nuclear weapon or the collapse of the regime, Korea is an issue that can make or break the Clinton presidency. An experienced, no-nonsense negotiator respected on Capitol Hill and well regarded by our allies is necessary to manage the policy.

Such a person would provide the best hope of disciplining the cumbersome bureaucracy, building bipartisan support, reaching timely decisions and, over the longer term, manage the impact of Korean unification. I say this as one who tried to navigate through this bureaucracy on the Korea issue while serving in the State Department for almost four years.

A “package deal” should be, in essence, a reciprocal political and confidence-building process involving several stages. For example, if the IAEA is allowed to visit the waste sites or if Pyongyang dismantles its reprocessing facilities, lifting the trade embargo against North Korea might be considered. Any such step should be closely coordinated with parallel steps by Seoul and Tokyo.

In addition to the nuclear bombs, North Korea’s sale of ballistic missiles and its development of a 1,000-kilometer missile capable of striking South Korea and Japan, as well as its forward-deployed conventional forces, should be elements of a grand bargain designed to reduce tension, facilitate North-South reconciliation and engineer a “soft landing” for North Korea, which is undergoing a political succession whose outcome will not be complete until Kin Il Sung leaves.

There is little risk in a comprehensive approach. If North Korea rejects a magnanimous proposition, Pyongyang would, in essence, be saying a nuclear bomb is its best insurance policy. In that case, having gone the extra diplomatic mile, the United States would be well-positioned to assemble a global coalition to impose U.N. sanctions on North Korea. Despite fears of Chinese obstructionism, if Washington made such a reasonable offer, Beijing is likely not to oppose sanctions. During the Gulf War, it should be recalled, China abstained on a vote on sanctions.

If North Korea accepts the offer, it would have to open up its hermetically sealed society to absorb economic aid, trade and investment. Such a process would either dramatically change the regime or lead to its demise. Whichever, U.S. interests would be advanced: It is a win-win proposition.

To do any less would not only risk erosion of the non-proliferation regime, but increase the risk of confrontation by miscalculation and tarnish U.S. credibility in East Asia--an area of growing importance to the United States.*