The US is starting a nuclear fight that will be hard to stop

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1015278,00.html

The ambiguities clouding US policy towards North Korea date back to the early days of the administration, when George Bush put a damper on former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung's "sunshine policy" of detente with the North. Since 9/11 and Bush's "axis of evil" speech, matters have just gone from bad to worse.

The planned talks in China, also involving South Korea, Japan and Russia, are viewed in the region and beyond as a crucial opportunity to arrest this apparently inexorable downward spiral. The UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, and others have suggested that North Korea might initially freeze its nuclear arms programmes in return for a sort of US non-aggression pact.

But such compromises may not suit the likes of Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith at the Pentagon, and other hardliners, including perhaps Bush himself - who has professed personal loathing for Pyongyang's communist leader. For them, it seems, nothing less than Kim's overthrow will ultimately suffice, although it may have to wait until a second Bush term.

The strange, treacherous ways of American diplomacy are also complicating that other nuclear stand-off, with Iran. A September deadline now looms, by which time Tehran is told it must accept "challenge" inspections of its nuclear facilities. If not, the US may seek UN sanctions and step up unilateral pressure; military options are not entirely ruled out. Following Washington's line, and egged on by Israel, Tony Blair is turning the screw, too, threatening to block an EU trade deal and highlighting human rights issues.

[JackSwift]

1. They make money on more tension

not less.

[berry]

2. Hmm--the articles are piling up on the Iran issue.

This one covers both Korea and Iran. Are they totally mad? (rhetorical question) I do believe the PNACers want to precipitate war in both countries, and quickly, before they are prevented by countervailing public opinion.

This is demented, demonic. Words fail me.

[teryang]

3. But does the US actually want to cut a deal?

That is a rhetorical question. There is nothing "ambiguous" about neocon regime policy toward N.Korea.

Bolton, an in your face neocon, has no interest in negotiation. This is a hair brained and dangerous scheme to topple the communist dictatorship by breaching agreements, simultaneously provoking it and starving it out. Most experts don't believe that it will work but rather that it will lead to war. Part of the strategy is forcing out the elected south Korean government which doesn't agree with neocon methods and in some respects is countering them. How do they expect Koreans to vote for a war in their own front yard?

It is obvious that we don't want to cut a deal because we breached the one we had, the Agreed Framework. The North only announced its intentions to restart its reactors and to begin reprocessing fuel after it became obvious that the American side wasn't going to deliver the reactors it promised to build, (which the N.Koreans were obliged to pay for). Annoucements that the N.Koreans have had ongoing secret nuclear weapons material production going since 1994 anyway haven't been verified by anyone and are probably disinformation. If the North had any nuclear weapons they were made with materials produced before 1994.

Our neocon regime created this crisis; the nuclear issue with N.Korea was already under control and they deliberately upset the apple cart. We would have more likelihood of toppling Kim if we did what this author suggested:

<Many in the Bush administration want regime change in North Korea and think that slow strangulation might do it," Goodby wrote in the New York Times. But security assurances and economic incentives were what was really needed. "Improving the lot of the North Korean people should be a fundamental aim."

Such common-sense advice risks being drowned out by the beat of Washington's ideological war drums.>

Revolution comes from rising expectations not confrontation with a foreign power.