WASHINGTON -- It was predictable that the six-nation talks last week in Beijing over how to handle the North Korean nuclear crisis would fail to achieve substantive results. Hardliners will argue this proves that diplomacy with the Stalinist North Korean regime can't work. In fact, what it really shows is that diplomacy has yet to be tried. It is time that Washington got serious about offering North Korea a tough but realistic proposal before the Hermit Kingdom develops an even larger nuclear arsenal and an even more desperate foreign policy.

Why was failure preordained? The United States insisted that North Korea give up the only thing it has of any real value -- its nuclear programs -- without offering anything tangible in return. And for their part, the North Koreans continued to use blackmail and bluster, including the threat to soon test a nuclear weapon, as their primary negotiating tactics.

At first blush, it is hard to criticize President George W. Bush too severely. Preoccupied with other foreign-policy challenges from Iraq to Afghanistan to Israel, his time for Northeast Asia is limited. Rightly indignant at how North Korean leader Kim Jong Il treats his own people, and aware of North Korea's extortionate tendencies, he refuses to give North Korea inducements to stop a nuclear program it should already have ended according to the 1994 accord that President Bill Clinton signed.