Oct. 31, 1994: Political Interest:Tough, Smart Deal
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TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1994
Oct. 31, 1994 New Hope for Public Schools
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<source>Time Magazine</source>
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THE POLITICAL INTEREST, Page 34
A Tough, Smart Deal
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<p>By Michael Kramer
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<p> Is the U.S. rewarding North Korea's bad behavior? Yes. Does
buying off Pyongyang's nuclear-weapons program set a bad precedent?
Yes. So Bill Clinton sold out, right? Wrong. The deal is smart
and tough, a triumph of patient and creative diplomacy.
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<p> North Korea is the 1990s equivalent of the Cuban missile crisis.
By comparison, the other foreign problems plaguing the President
are mere irritations.
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<p> Left unchecked, Pyongyang would surely expand its bomb-grade
plutonium stocks and its arsenal of nukes, which may already
include one or two atomic devices. That could spawn a regional
arms race and, worse still, a proliferation nightmare. "The
real threat, if the North is allowed to get more nuclear-weapons
material, would be their selling it, not using it," says Representative
Gary Ackerman, who chairs the House Subcommittee on Asia and
the Pacific. "Their economy is virtually nonexistent. They'll
do anything for money, which is why they're the largest exporter
of Scud missiles. If they had a serious nuclear capability,
they'd sell that too."
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<p> The Administration's deal is smart because it directly addresses
that possibility by focusing on the North's future capability
first. It's important to know about Pyongyang's existing nuclear
capacity, but seeking to resolve that question now would have
been a deal breaker. The agreement is smarter still because
if Clinton had managed to induce the North to abide only by
the terms of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Pyongyang
could continue to reprocess plutonium so long as it promised
not to use the fuel to build weapons. "But that assumes the
International Atomic Energy Agency could guarantee that ((the
North Koreans)) wouldn't use the stuff to make bombs, and the
agency has proved poor at that in the past," says Robert Manning,
a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, a Washington
think tank. "The U.S. agreement dismantles the reprocessing
facilities altogether, and that's the best way to guard against
weapons production."
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<p> The deal is tough because it incorporates Ronald Reagan's injunction
to "trust but verify." The substitute technology the North covets--the light-water reactors they want for energy generation--won't be delivered until Pyongyang's compliance has been
proved.
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<p> The deal wobbles most seriously because it may encourage other
bad actors to develop similar blackmail abilities. "But North
Korea is special," says Manning. "Its army is huge, its leaders
are insulated, and it has proved its willingness to fight, which
it might do again if it feels cornered." Besides, adds Ackerman,
rejecting the "bad precedent" argument, "we've bought off other
nuclear weapons, as in Ukraine, and we're constantly purchasing
arms that have fallen into bad hands. It's better to do a buyback
than to have the stuff fired at us. North Korea is just a larger
version of what we're doing elsewhere."
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<p> Above all, Clinton's deal is shrewd because it is more about
economics than nukes. By envisioning new financial and diplomatic
exchanges, the agreement aims to moderate the North's behavior.
The regime may still fall, but if it does, it may now do so
without embroiling the entire peninsula in a devastating war.
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<p> Reaching an agreement hasn't been easy. Implementing it will
be harder--and Pyongyang fears that the new Congress, assuming
it is more conservative, may move to upset the bargain. That
would be tragic. The deal is a good one. And by holding out
against those who urged a course that could have led to war,
Clinton has proved his strength and made the world safer.
