Monday, Feb. 14, 2005

It's Time to Disengage with Kim Jong Il

By Jasper Becker

We should be grateful that Kim Jong Il wants to spare us more rounds of the pointless six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program. They might otherwise have dragged on for years as Kim doggedly extracted all the aid and guarantees he wanted in exchange for more empty promises. The latest crisis raises hopes that the case for engagement with North Korea has finally run its course. If so, we should be glad, even though that case was initially strong.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the liberation of its East European satellites were followed by the death of Kim Il Sung in 1994 and a disastrous famine in the North. Together, these factors made change seem inevitable. Pyongyang, it was hoped, would open its economy, abandon its ambitions to conquer the South, and seek a rapprochement with Seoul. U.S. President Bill Clinton tried hard to encourage such moves.

But Kim realizes that if he were ever to really reform, both he and his kingdom would quickly disappear—as did similar regimes in the Soviet bloc. So Kim wants guarantees that if he takes the risks asked of him, Washington will keep the dynasty in power. In other words, while some in Washington seek regime change, Kim wants regime preservation. Especially in South Korea, there are those who think that such a deal would be the best way to reduce tensions and to wean Pyongyang off the habits of a rogue state. But the analysis is flawed.

Whether or not Pyongyang really has a small or large nuclear arsenal—or is simply bluffing, like Saddam Hussein—the military calculations on the Korean peninsula will not change. With large stocks of chemical and biological weapons, together with special forces to release them in South Korea, and missiles with which to terrorize Japan or threaten U.S. bases in Asia, Kim already has all the deterrence any country could want. But the dynasty has lost whatever popular support it ever enjoyed, and the ruling family is riven by murderous internal feuds. To keep Kim in power would hence mean going against the wishes of his own people, while entrusting him with large sums of foreign aid—this despite his long record of corruption and economic incompetence.

Even if a deal to preserve the regime could be struck, would Kim really ever give up his nuclear weapons? The record suggests he would not. Last week, he effectively admitted that he had broken his promise to China not to nuclearize the Korean peninsula. Clinton, too, was double-crossed; in 1994, Kim gave his word that he would freeze his nuclear ambitions but in fact developed a secret program for uranium enrichment. And Kim has just broken his promise to Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to hand over the remains of kidnapped Japanese. Sooner or later, anyone who has gone out on a limb to help Kim has been taken for a sucker.

For these reasons, any policy based on keeping Kim in place is bound to fail. When Kim took over from his father over 10 years ago, he had a chance to make a fresh start, and sometimes played with the idea. But in the end, there was no commitment to change. Instead some 2 million people died of hunger and disease. Refugees tell us that Kim was personally responsible both for mismanaging the economy, and hence for creating the conditions for famine, and then for refusing to take obvious measures to end it. In my view, he should be held accountable for a form of genocide.

What should be done now? With the admission that the North has nuclear weapons, its case can be brought to the U.N. Security Council, which should impose sanctions for breaches of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that began some 20 years ago. Such sanctions would oblige China and Russia to guarantee that North Korea's trade in nuclear materials and missile technology was ended. This should be possible. The U.S. and its allies are already patrolling the seas around Korea, and China and Russia control the only land and air passages. In short, last week's revelations offer an opportunity. Washington will never have a better moment to start persuading China, Russia and especially South Korea to help North Koreans end the worst tyranny of our time.