What Will Make Them Stop?

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Nor did the agreement with the Europeans specify when Iran would sign the new inspections protocol or how long it would take the country's elected government and clerical overseers to ratify it. The same day Iran promised to suspend reprocessing efforts, Iran's national security council chief Hassan Rowhani said, "We voluntarily chose to do it, which means it could last for one day or one year." In any case, the goal is to make the voluntary suspension permanent and get Iran to stop making nuclear fuel. The Europeans hope to persuade Tehran by guaranteeing that they will provide supplies. But no matter how diligently Iran respects NPT rules or how well monitored its program is, if it retains the capacity to enrich uranium, it can revert to the bomb business on short notice unless the facilities are completely dismantled.

North Korea
The nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula has hung over the U.S. ever since Bush declared his "skepticism" about the regime. "I loathe Kim Jong Il," he told author Bob Woodward. "I've got a visceral reaction to this guy because he is starving his people." Bush said that, unlike the Clinton Administration, his would not submit to Kim's nuclear blackmail by rewarding the obdurate nation for abandoning its illicit ambitions. For the next 18 months, North Korea was pretty much ignored.

But Kim's regime forced the U.S. to take notice in October 2002 by admitting that it had cheated on its 1994 accord with Clinton to stop pursuing nukes and was well down the road toward making some. Now the threat was grave: North Korea had tested a missile that could deliver a nuclear warhead to the U.S., and the cash-strapped regime could conceivably sell some of its stock to terrorists. North Korea's worried neighbors felt Washington's harsh line had driven Kim to reckless behavior. In January Pyongyang quit the NPT, threw out inspectors and accelerated its plutonium production. The North is thought to have one or two bombs plus fuel to make up to six. But as Pyongyang watched Bush charge into Iraq, it fretted that it could be next. It demanded that the U.S. sign a nonaggression pact renouncing hostile intent as a prerequisite for a nuclear stand-down. The U.S. said it would strike no bargain unless the North scrapped its nukes first.

Since taking office, Secretary of State Colin Powell has tried to nudge Bush toward a diplomatic overture. As the crisis built this year, Powell finally persuaded Bush and China to form a united front with Russia, Japan and South Korea to negotiate with the North. The show of unity at a six-way session in Beijing in August highlighted the North's isolation, but the principal antagonists did not budge. Pyongyang said it was not interested in continuing talks. The allies grumbled there was no point in pressing ahead if the U.S. was just going to restate its absolutist position.

As Bush prepared for the trip he made to Asia two weeks ago, he felt pressure to offer a concession that might break the stalemate. If the talks collapsed, his Asian allies would blame him. On the weekend of Oct. 11, he called advisers to Camp David to thrash out an acceptable compromise. The group proposed that Bush offer a written multilateral "agreement with a small a"--not a treaty — assuring that the U.S. would not attack the North. In return, Kim would have to start dismantling his nukes.

Bush's offer, made in a private meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Bangkok, was out there for exactly two days before the North dismissed it as "laughable." But it played well elsewhere, especially among the anxious Asian allies. It now falls to China, which has grudgingly taken on the role of chief mediator, to entice Pyongyang back to the negotiating table. Prospects brightened Saturday as the North abruptly reversed itself and said it would "consider" Bush's proposal.

For the moment, multilateralism rules. Bush sounded like a convert when he told reporters he welcomed Europe's involvement in Iran as well as the Asian effort in Korea. "It's the same approach," he said, "a collective voice trying to convince a leader to change behavior." But few believe Iran and North Korea are ready to give up their nuclear dreams. And fewer still think Bush has permanently metamorphosed from Lone Ranger to great statesman. On his way back from Asia, Bush couldn't help bashing Kim: "I just can't respect anyone that would really let his people starve and shrink in size as a result of malnutrition." Back home, the neocons and hard-liners who surround the President are just waiting for the poofy multilateral deals to fall apart. Then they will have the case they want to go full bore after regime change in the rest of the "axis of evil."