HONOLULU -- As the United States, Japan and South Korea prepare for a second round of negotiations with North Korea over its nuclear ambitions, the options for resolving this dispute seem to have sorted themselves into five -- one unlikely, another unacceptable, a third unproductive, the fourth unrealistic and the last unappealing.
U.S. President George W. Bush set the issue in context last week. In his address to the United Nations General Assembly, he did not mention North Korea but asserted that the spread of weapons of mass destruction must stop because "outlaw regimes that possess nuclear, chemical and biological weapons -- and the means to deliver them -- would be able to use blackmail and create chaos in entire regions."
"These weapons could be used by terrorists to bring sudden disaster and suffering on a scale we can scarcely imagine," Bush said, contending that this "is a peril that cannot be ignored or wished away. If such a danger is allowed to fully materialize, all words, all protests, will come too late."