On first blush, the news seems all good. Props are due for the appropriateness of the six-way deal worked out yesterday with the Norks. In exchange for international inspections and closing down of production at The nuclear facility, diplomatic relations are forthcoming with the US as well as several thousand tons of oil.
The Norks have been taken down a peg and whatever fizzly and undeliverable nukes they still possess are nullified by their commitment to step down from the provocations of secret development. This is a step in the right direction and deserves carrots.
It was right and proper and wise for the Bush Administration to demand six party talks instead of a bilateral agreement. The fruits of this diplomatic victory should make State and Bush both smell like a rose. Today, the Axis appears to be a bit less evil.
The accord sets a 60-day deadline for North Korea to accomplish the first steps toward disarmament, and leaves until an undefined moment — and to another negotiation — the actual removal of North Korea's nuclear weapons and the fuel manufactured to produce them.
Under the agreement, the first part of the aid -- 50,000 tons of fuel oil, or an equivalent value of economic or humanitarian aid -- would be provided by South Korea, Russia, China and the United States; in the case of the United States , that would require congressional approval, which is likely to be difficult to get.
The accord, described as "initial actions," left for further negotiations the question of what to do with North Korea's declared nuclear weapons, estimated at a half-dozen bombs, and a stockpile of perhaps 50 kilograms of plutonium. In addition, it postponed discussions on a separate highly enriched uranium program that the Bush administration contends -- but North Korea denies -- was undertaken in secret as a second source of nuclear weapons fuel.
As a result, the agreement seemed likely to face opposition in Washington by conservatives who remain unconvinced that the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, ever intends to relinquish his nuclear weapons. Similarly, the Bush administration faces criticism from Democrats who charge that the administration, after breaking away from the Agreed Framework in 2002, ended up five years later with a roughly similar accord.
Which basically means that Congress is going to have plenty opportunity to screw up the deal as it stands and bloviate our way towards diplomatic failure. We'll wait and see what the key mouths start saying, but it seems to me that the Democrats of all people should be overjoyed at this measure of success. Republicans will be overly cautious unless the whole deal can be spun as a victory for Rice & company reflecting positively on Bush's ability to bring rogue states to heel. But there is ample precedent for the US not to trust the Norks at their word, and the matter of plutonium remains of gravest concern.
I say give the Norks their chance and move quickly forward to the next round building on this initial success. We need to get that plutonium and the enrichment stuff under control.
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