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by Robert Lane Greene
Only at TNR Online | Post date 03.11.03
If it were not so deadly serious, it would almost be comical. While Saddam Hussein swears he is disarming and has proclaimed a new love for peace, a North Korean official promised last weekend to carry any war with America to the U.S. mainland, setting New York, Washington, and Chicago "aflame."
It is by now painfully clear that North Korea poses at least as much of a threat to the United States and the world as Iraq does. After a series of escalating provocations, both rhetorical and military, and with its nuclear reprocessing facility at Yongbyon just months away from being ready to churn out weapons-grade plutonium, there can be no more ignoring the menace of the bizarre and brutal regime in Pyongyang. Yet George W. Bush and his administration continue to minimize the threat. At his press conference last Thursday evening, the president made a point of calling the situation "regional."
The obvious explanation for this approach is that, despite the long-standing orientation of the U.S. military toward being able to win two major regional wars at once, the administration believes it can only handle one crisis at a time, and Iraq is the crisis it has chosen to tackle first. But that logic is exactly backwards: A proper focus on North Korea now would advance, not hinder, the struggle against both Iraq and the broader proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Make no mistake: There are extremely good reasons for taking different approaches in Iraq and North Korea. North Korea is probably the most militarized country on earth, and the death toll from a war on the Korean Peninsula would be far greater than in a war in Iraq in terms of American, allied, and enemy lives. With thousands of artillery pieces trained on Seoul, the North could devastate that city within hours. So for the Korean crisis to justify war, the threat must be imminent, not just clearly foreseeable (as in Iraq), and all diplomatic options must have been fully exhausted.
As I've written before, that's an argument for taking North Korea more seriously, not less. But first-order effects aside, failing to treat the North Korean threat as a crisis has another important effect: It undermines our campaign to disarm Saddam Hussein. The president, after all, has said repeatedly that America will "not stand aside as the world's most dangerous regimes develop the world's most dangerous weapons." When he then turns around and ignores North Korea to concentrate on Iraq, he gives America's critics reason to believe that legitimate security concerns were never part of the equation, and that the war in Iraq is really about oil, revenge for Bush senior, whatever. By treating North Korea as every bit the crisis Iraq is, on the other hand, Bush junior would make it plain to the world that national security is indeed his top concern.
The effect on our potential allies would also be beneficial. After watching and possibly helping the United States defuse a threat in their own backyard, the currently wary Russians and Chinese would be far less inclined to see us as a dangerous vigilante. And that goodwill would have repercussions far beyond Iraq. Once we'd built up trust with these two powers--both of whom, incidentally, face home-grown Islamist militant movements--we'd be well on our way to a formidable, if ad hoc, alliance against nuclear proliferation based on our shared interest in thwarting it. (An added benefit: With Russia, China, America, and its ally Britain all singing from the same sheet on WMD proliferation, it's hard to imagine anyone caring much what France thinks anymore.)
Likewise, a decisive and successful two-front strategy--war in Iraq, a hard-nosed solution in North Korea (preferably negotiated, possibly military)--would have an equally desirable effect on potential adversaries. Iran, whose nuclear program is of increasing concern--an article in yesterday's Washington Post reports that the Iranian nuclear program could produce a workable bomb as early as 2005, much earlier than Western intelligence agencies were predicting even weeks ago--comes quickly to mind. By demonstrating that the United States will take every step necessary to prevent nuclear proliferation, particularly among rogue regimes, we encourage the overwhelmingly young and moderate population of Iran in its fight against the unelected hardline mullahs who continue to smother domestic political reform. (Polls show that the average Iranian has a favorable view of the United States--which is to say, that he or she would be open to this kind of encouragement.) The sooner both sides in this struggle realize that the mullahs' rogue posture is hopelessly counterproductive, the sooner the moderates will triumph.
But all of these benefits have been lost in the confusion created when the administration failed to acknowledge North Korea's swift march toward acquiring nukes. The president's official national security strategy outlines a "Bush doctrine," which commits America to preempting threats from hostile countries. But inaction on North Korea sends the signal that we mean what we say, except when we don't. The administration should then not be surprised when other countries do as we say, except when they don't.
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