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By Moe Lane Posted in National Security — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

OK, it's been a day since the story broke, and I haven't seen any dramatic changes, so let's talk about the North Korea thing:

N.Korea agrees to disable nuclear program in 2007
By Laura MacInnis

GENEVA (Reuters) - North Korea agreed in weekend talks with the United States to fully account for and disable its nuclear programs by the end of this year, negotiators said on Sunday.

"We had very good, very substantive talks," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill told reporters. "One thing that we agreed on is that (North Korea) will provide a full declaration of all of their nuclear programs and will disable their nuclear programs by the end of this year, 2007."

The devil, as always, is in the details.

Read on.

The major question is... no, not "Why?" "Why?" is simple*: the PRC isn't willing to cover for the North Koreans anymore. The major question is "Will it work?" It's a very good question. We don't know yet the details: the major change here is a firm date of 12/31/2007 for the disabling of the North Korean nuclear program (see here, here, and here for story details, and Don Surber and Captain Ed for their own analysis). The carrot seems to be that we'll stop treating them as a state sponsor of terror and pariah state if they stop acting like one (to use the more optimistic take on things).

It should be noted that there are a good number of skeptics about this deal (I oscillate between being one of them, myself). John Bolton's commentary on Friday provides one scenario where this agreement can be folded, spindled and mutilated:

Consider a possible North Korean "declaration," perhaps drafted with State's coaching, which would say something like this: "We manufactured two nuclear devices, one of which we detonated last October. We detonated the other earlier, but you didn't recognize it as a nuclear explosion. We currently have no nuclear devices. Our plutonium reprocessing efforts were not very successful, which explains why we only had two devices, neither of which produced large yields. We ultimately disposed of our limited remaining plutonium to others, and we have no idea where it now is. We currently have no plutonium. On uranium enrichment, we purchased some UF6 and a small number of centrifuges for a test cascade from A.Q. Khan, but we could not progress due to inadequate funds. Accordingly, we long ago sold all but a small amount of the UF6 and the centrifuges to third-parties. We will produce what little we have at Yongbyon shortly. That's it. Are we done now?"

Many will fall for this pretense of "full disclosure," especially those needing a diplomatic "success" to justify long years of faith in the Six-Party Talks. The alternative is to reject any North Korean declaration without full and timely verification. IAEA inspections alone are not enough. Its capacities are limited. Indeed, much of the IAEA's work is accomplished on the basis of intelligence provided by governments.

Bolton's a smart guy, and easily my favorite ever US Ambassador to the UN. That being said, there's perhaps a whiff of Foggy Bottom politicking coming from all of this, and while I do not think that the man is wrong to be suspicious, his suspicions may turn out to be unnecessary. This is, after all, not really between us and the North Koreans: it's between us, the North Koreans and the Chinese. And they, at least, have rational goals.

So, we'll see.

Moe

*Which means, of course, that I'm completely wrong; it's never the simple answer. It is, however, 8:30 AM on Labor Day Monday and I've been feeding a baby for an hour and a half, so the simple answer will at least do until I can have my coffee.

**I am assuming that John Bolton is more likely to know about diplomatic agreements ahead of time than, say, I would be. I think that this is a reasonable assumption.