How Dangerous Is North Korea?

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LAST WEEK PRESIDENT BUSH RULED out U.S. military action to take out Pyongyang's suspected nuclear arsenal but then pledged to "lead a coalition to disarm" Saddam Hussein, who isn't believed to possess one yet. Bush and his aides tried to draw a distinction between Iraq and North Korea by pointing to their record of defiance: though Saddam refused for four years to allow the world to check whether he was trying to obtain nuclear weapons, North Korea, until this recent bout of truculence, had at least frozen its plutonium process. That argument glides over the reality that while Pyongyang has submitted to nominal international oversight since 1994, it cheated on its agreements and consistently restricted inspectors' access to key nuclear sites. Whatever its reasons, the Administration's strategy is to talk tough but give North Korean leader Kim Jong Il a slight opening--threatening sanctions, not military force. "I believe the situation with North Korea will be resolved peacefully," Bush said last week. "It's a diplomatic issue, not a military issue."

Critics slam the Administration for having provoked Kim with its bellicose, axis-of-evil rhetoric--"It's like yelling at a guy who's aiming a gun at you," laments a Pentagon official--and then downplaying the North Korean danger so as not to disrupt its timetable for a strike against Iraq. Former Secretary of State Warren Christopher told TIME that the Administration "seems to have almost an obsession" with Saddam. "I'm concerned that we seem to be lurching toward war without taking into account what our priorities should be." The White House insists that Iraq remains a greater menace than North Korea, in part because Saddam has already shown he is willing to use weapons of mass destruction. But some foreign-policy veterans, including Christopher, think North Korea poses the bigger strategic threat, given its more advanced nuclear program, its long-range delivery systems and its propensity to sell weapons to anyone who will buy them.