Failed foreign policy

The LA Times has a good overview of the Bush administration's foreign policy failings with North Korea.

Donald Gregg, a U.S. ambassador to South Korea under Bush's father and now head of the New York-based Korea Society, said the crisis could have been averted if the current Bush administration had talked to the North Koreans directly. He visited Pyongyang in late 2002 and brought back a written offer from the North Koreans to negotiate one-on-one.

"We were told at the White House that the offer would not be accepted as it would be 'rewarding bad behavior,' " Gregg recalled. "The basic problem is that Bush & Co. see diplomacy as something you give to a country as a reward for good behavior … not as a tool to be used which may bring better behavior on the part of an antagonist."

This was clear to everyone who knew anything at the time, but the Bush administration clearly doesn't have anyone who knows anything on staff, therefore, they weren't in a position to do anything to slow or stop the North Koreans. All they could do was make idle threats and posture.

The six-party talks created an environment in which differences between the United States and the other parties began to loom larger than the North Korean nuclear problem itself.

The North Koreans were able to cleverly exploit the unpopularity of the war in Iraq to sow discord. In light of the United States' failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, China, Russia and South Korea all began to publicly question the U.S. claims about evidence of a highly enriched uranium program in North Korea.

So now who will be next to start a nuclear weapons program, with the United States unable to do anything about it? And the continued threats by the US only force the North Koreans to push their weapons program forward.