By: Paige Rohe

It’s been two years since we invaded Iraq and subsequently removed any
possibility that the nation has or ever had weapons of mass destruction. Now,
as we happily rebuild yet another previously rogue nation into an image of
ourselves, the question remains as to what we’re planning to do with the other
two scorpions left in the box: Iran and North Korea. The two part series “The
Axis of Evil Minus One” will explore the Bush Administration’s policies towards
Iran and North Korea during and since the invasion of Iraq. What’s next for the
future of a secure America and what will we have to do to get it?


North Korea: A Nation in Isolation

We’ve already been to war with North Korea although few Americans, today, seem
to remember it. Perhaps that’s why it’s been called the “Forgotten War.”   At
the time, 1950 that is, we were concerned about Communist expansion in
Asia-particularly because the communist Democratic People's Republic of Korea
had invaded the democratic South Korean nation. Things didn’t look good and
still don’t. We established the 38th parallel to keep North and South Korea
apart and the violence has ended but half a century later, little else has
changed. Kim Il Sung the North Korean dictator of the 50’s has been replaced by
his son Kim Jung Il and tensions are still extremely high between the United
States and North Korea. It doesn’t help that every day since the 38th parallel
was established, thousands of troops have sat armed, glaring at one another
across the demilitarized zone.

Truth be told, we’ve never officially ended our hostilities with North Korea
through Congressional legislation although the war-proper ended in 1953. North
Korea represents a problem for the American foreign policy community because we
simply don’t know how to deal with them. Another war would be far too costly
for both American troops and Korean civilians. Besides, we’re already heavily
engaged abroad as it is.  

North Korea was categorized as a member of the Axis of Evil not because Kim
Jung Il is eccentric and selfish, with a population starving while he’s busy
watching horror films, but because North Korea under Kim Jung Il’s leadership
is believed to be developing a nuclear weapons program. Whether or not Jung Il
will use it sometime in the future, is the question on everyone’s mind.


Since 1994 North Korea has raised concerns among American security officials
regarding Korea's alleged, covert nuclear weapons program. This past February
the People's Republic of China has taken the lead in mediating talks to get NK
to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.  However talks have stalled once
again and many critics of the Bush Administration argue that the lack of
progress in negotiations with North Korea suggests the situation is not a high
priority on President Bush's agenda.

Dr. Marion Creekmore is a former US Ambassador, professor of political science
at Emory University and a member of the Council for Foreign Relations.
Creekmore worked closely with former President Jimmy Carter on a special
diplomatic trip to North Korea in 1994 and is currently writing a book on his
experiences.


PurePolitics.com: Dr. Creekmore, Why have diplomatic relations with North Korea
remained so poor?

Dr. Marion Creekmore: The basic problem since the early 90’s has been the US
and Western concern with the possibility, and it’s a high probability, of a
North Korean nuclear weapons program. The US has wanted to get the North
Koreans to dismantle and destroy their nuclear weapons program and to do it in
a way that could be internationally verifiable- so that we would know that they
wouldn’t be cheating.

What the North Koreans have wanted is a more an improved relationship with the
United States that would involve treatment on a more equal basis; comparable to
how the US treats most other countries. Additionally, North Korea has wanted
very firm assurance from the United States that it will not attack or use
nuclear weapons on North Korea.

PurePolitics.com: Why is 1994 a pivotal year in US relations with North Korea?

Dr. Marion Creekmore: The crisis of 1994 then revolved around these particular
issues.  In 1994, the US believed that in the worst-case scenario, North Korea
had enough plutonium to make up to two nuclear bombs. Now, I stress that this
was the worst-case scenario.

There was no agreement in Washington as to whether or not North Korea had this
plutonium, but that was the worst case. Since the North Koreans would not open
up their nuclear program to inspection by the IAEA of two particular undeclared
nuclear sites….the US threatened to (use sanctions and) get the UN to impose
economic sanctions against North Korea. The crisis of 1994 then revolved around
these particular issues.

The North Koreans said that if that happened, they would consider it an act of
war. Jimmy Carter went to North Korea that year and keeping in mind what he
felt both sides wanted, saw that it was possible to bring about an agreement,
with both sides getting what they wanted. He cut a deal with the then North
Korean president, a dictator, a man by the name of Kim Il Sung and this called
for the North Koreans to freeze all of their nuclear programs, in return for
the US and North Korea resuming bilateral talks and the assurance that the US
wasn’t going to attack North Korea.

This led to the United States Government and the North Korean government
negotiations three months later and the result of these negotiations was an
accord called the “Agreed Framework.”

PurePolitics.com: What were the terms of the Agreed Framework?

Dr. Marion Creekmore: The North Koreans, agreed to freeze their nuclear program
and the United States agreed that less proliferation types of reactors would be
provided to the North Koreans to replace their more proliferating type they
were then using. The United States also agreed that over time the sanctions
they had imposed upon the North Koreans would be reduced and the US would move
towards diplomatic relations. For a number of years that arrangement held.

The idea was that once the nuclear reactors were in place, the North Koreans
would completely dismantle all their old nuclear stuff and they would open to
inspection any and everything anyone wanted to see in their country. The South
Koreans were going do the same. Until 2002, everyone thought that agreement was
holding.

PurePolitics.com: What happened in 2002?

Dr. Marion Creekmore: There is another wrinkle. There is a debate as to whether
or not the agreement was violated and who violated it first, but the agreement
dealt with the nuclear program that produced plutonium out of which bombs could
be made. There is also another process by which you can create nuclear bombs
without creating plutonium.

The North Koreans apparently, although they were still publicly denying it,
began to work on a highly enriched uranium process that would give them the
capacity, over a fairly long period of time, to produce nuclear weapons in that
way.

In 2002, the US delegation met with the North Koreans and accused them of
trying to develop a nuclear weapons program, referring to this highly enriched
uranium process.

The North Koreans, according to the press reports released by the US
government,admitted at that meeting that they had that highly enriched uranium
facility. They have since publicly said that they did not.

When the issue became public it was through the statement by the US government
that its officials had been told by the North Koreans that they had been told
about this process.

Given what’s come out about Pakistan and it’s relation to North Korea, I think
it’s the general sense that there probably was some activity going on.

PurePolitics.com: There has been some discussion about how this has to do with
the drug trade in the region. Is this true and how are the two issues related?

Dr. Marion Creekmore: The Drug Trade has to do with the North Koreans having
almost no ability to earn foreign exchange. That’s also the main reason why
they sell missiles that we don’t want them to sell. They don’t produce much
that anybody else wants to buy, so drugs are one way to make money; selling
missiles is another.

That’s not to be approving of any of those, but if you want to deal with the
North Koreans in terms of a situation where you want them to do what you want
them to do, you’d have to at least take into account some of the imperatives
and constraints that they have.

PurePolitics.com: How did the situation change with the inauguration of
President Bush?

Dr. Marion Creekmore: When the Bush Administration came to power, they
basically made clear that they had real reservations about this framework
agreement in 1994. First, they argued that they did not trust the North
Koreans. Second they cited that the framework agreement allowed the North
Koreans to keep their facilities, though they were frozen. And finally, they
said that the agreement did not deal with the possibility of producing bombs in
another way.  

And you recall the 2002 state of the Union address where North Korea was
included as a member of the  “Axis of Evil.” It was in October that James
Kelly, with the American delegation went over and held that meeting which I
just referred to. Now the current situation is that there was another meeting,
there’s actually been two, six-power meetings.

Pure Politics.com: What is the current Bush Administration position on dealing
with the threat of North Korea?

Dr. Marion Creekmore: The Bush Administration’s position, as I understand it,
is (it) insist(s) [ing] that the North Koreans must terminate all of its
nuclear programs, or at least it’s nuclear weapons programs, and that it must
destroy them and verify in an international arena that they have. Then and only
then, will the Administration think about some of those things that the North
Koreans wanted back in 1994, and thought they were getting at least to some
extent in the late 1990’s and are not getting today.


PurePolitics.com: If it would be in their best interest to maintain the
Framework Agreement why did they violate it?

Dr. Marion Creekmore: The North Korean position has been that the US violated
the framework agreement. In that period, in December of 2002, the US quit
delivering heavy fuel oil to North Korea, which had been part of that 1994
agreement.

The North Koreans say that the US violated the agreement. The US said that when
the North Koreans began working on the highly enriched uranium that they
violated the agreement.  

In the period after October 2002, the North Koreans left the non-proliferation
treaty, they un-froze the nuclear weapons programs that they had kept frozen in
1994, the reactors, that they had going in ‘94 that the freeze stopped were
back in function and they have taken the fuel rods that have came out of those
reactors in 1994 and they have disappeared from international view.  The North
Koreans have said that they have now turned all of those spent fuel rods into
plutonium. There is some question on the part of the US whether that is a bluff
or real.

PurePolitics.com: What affect to do you think the US’s military intervention in
Iraq will have on negotiations with North Korea?

Dr. Marion Creekmore: I don’t think there is a single answer to that. There are
two answers. One is that they were sufficiently concerned about the massive Us
power used and the possibility that it might be used against them has made them
decide to go back to the negotiating table.

There are others who would argue that because of the threat and what was done,
that this has caused the North Koreans to accelerate their nuclear program, to
develop as many weapons as possible which gives them much stronger leverage in
any kind of bargaining situation and it would certainly would concern US
officials much more if there weren’t just a country that had some plutonium but
that they actually had nuclear weapons that they might use or that they might
send to terrorists.

PurePolitics.com: Would you agree with the assessment that the North Koreans
might be stalling to produce more weapons before the Bush Administration
decides to take military or other more severe action against North Korea?

Dr. Marion Creekmore: There is a school of thought that is consistent back to
1994 that argues that everything they do is a stall so that they can get more
weapons. I don’t buy that personally.

The North Koreans regard themselves as having very few power instruments with
which to insure that their regime survives as long as it can. Their threat of
nuclear weapons is their trump card and they will try to leverage it as much as
they can in order to get the best possible deal.

I have no doubt in my mind, though there are many experts who disagreed with
me, that in 1994, what I said the North Koreans wanted was what they wanted,
and that’s why I said the framework agreement, had it been carried out I think
would have dealt with that.

My suspicion about what they want now would be the same thing. They would like
to get a situation where sanctions would be lifted, they move toward diplomatic
relations [with the United States], and they get assurances that we won’t
attack. We think that its strange, but they really have held the belief for a
long time that the US wants to attack North Korea.

And of course, with the Axis of Evil speech and Iraq, if you’re sitting in
Pyongy Yang, it makes it pretty easy to believe.


PurePolitics.com: What kind of deal is necessary now to get to a resolution?

Dr. Marion Creekmore: I would certainly be willing to move toward removing
economic sanctions and moving toward diplomatic relations as long as part of
this comprehensive agreement includes ways to internationally verify that the
program was being destroyed. I would think that is a deal that can be cut.

When you say, as the Bush administration was saying, and as the Clinton
Administration said before, that the North Koreans have to get rid of their
nuclear program before we will consider doing anything, I don’t think they’ll
agree to that position. They didn’t in ‘94, I don’t think they will now.

I don’t find it a compelling argument to say that we will not be blackmailed.
If there is something they want and something we want,then we can put all these
pieces together.

But there are many in Washington who disagree with that. They say that since
the North Koreans are illegally developing a nuclear weapons program they must
first, stop that program-completely get rid of it and let it be internationally
verified that they have done so- and then we’ll sit down and talk to see if
there is anything that they need or might be interested in that we might also
be interested in.
This is just not the position I take.

PurePolitics.com: Is there any particular form that these negotiations should
take that might help to make them more successful?

Dr. Marion Creekmore: We’re insisting that there be six-power talks, because we
don’t want to talk bilaterally with the North Koreans- even though enemy
corridors are at the six power talks. Despite the presence of other powers at
these six-power meetings, the US and the North Koreans do talk.

Having said that most of the things that are said about the North Koreans are
correct.

It is a highly dictatorial government. The people there are suffering
enormously. The leadership is not as concerned about its people as it should
be.  Its leadership record over the last 50 years is not anything anybody would
like to applaud.

But the one big difference between then and today, is that the biggest critics
of North Korea are not calling for military action as they were in 1994.

PurePolitics.com: Why is that?


Dr. Marion Creekmore: Its because they know that if there is military action in
North Korea, it’s going to mean a second Korean war, hundreds of thousands of
South Koreans are killed, as well as probably more North Koreans.

It’s going to mean that those 37,000 American troops in South Korea will be
killed. It will mean tremendous death and destruction in Seoul, which only
exists, I think it’s 19 miles from the demilitarized zone. So one of the
encouraging things to me, is that despite the harsh rhetoric of before, there’s
no one really saying that we ought to go in and do with North Korea as we dealt
with Iraq.  

In fact what you’re seeing is an Administration saying: “You deal with one
problem one way and another problem another way.” They were even beginning to
say that before the situation in Iraq did not go quite as smoothly as the
Administration planned.

I would imagine anybody in Washington, given what’s happened in Iraq would be
more reluctant to decide to go hit somebody else with force since it hasn’t
gone quite as smoothly as it has in Iraq. My view is that if you try to do
something military, the North Koreans will go down fighting and the costs will
be tremendous.

PurePolitics.com: What do you think China’s heavy involvement in recent
American and North Korean negotiations means for the region politically?

Dr. Marion Creekmore: I think what the Chinese are doing is very important and
very meaningful politically. The Chinese have probably been more active on this
issue in terms of an international context and collaboration with others than
in any other such issue that I can remember.

The Chinese really have done a great deal to keep these negotiations going. The
Chinese do not want a nuclear armed-North Korea and certainly do not want a war
in Northeast Asia involving the United States.It knows that if the situation
doesn’t improve, more and more North Korean refugees will be coming across its
border

China also knows that if NK becomes a nuclear power, there is a high
probability that Japan and maybe even South Korea will say “we can not, not be
a nuclear power, if North Korea is.”

So there are all sorts of very good, strong strategic regions for China to be
involved. And without the Chinese role, I’m afraid talks wouldn’t be going on.
The US position is very hard from the North Korean’s point of view and from the
point of view of a number of people attending these talks, and the North Korean
point of view is hard. The Chinese I think have kept these talks going, so I
think they are playing a very important role.

PurePolitics.com: Do you think China is going to take a stronger stance against
North Korea?
 

Dr. Marion Creekmore: I think the Chinese are trying to press for an
arrangement that is mutually acceptable to all parties: North Korea, the US,
South Korea, China, Japan and Russia. Does that mean it’s going to be putting
more pressure on NK? To the extent that it can use the pressure on North Korea,
but I know back in 1994 the Chinese did not believe they could make the North
Koreans do anything.

They thought they could have some influence but they were very sensitive to the
fact that the North Korean's, given their own isolation from world opinion and
their own feelings of self-importance, their feelings of “nobody’s gonna push
us around,”  may not listen to even the Chinese when if they said: “you can’t
do this.”

Would the Chinese mobilize stronger troops on the border? I don’t think that
would happen.

I think the Chinese are going to continue to be very active to get some kind of
arrangement and that’s a good thing.

Paige Rohe is an International Studies student at Emory University and a contributing writer for PurePolitics.com. She can be reached at feedback@purepolitics.com.

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