SEOUL -- "It's all Bush's fault!" "No, it's all Clinton's fault!" Has anyone engaged in this increasingly counterproductive debate over who should be blamed for North Korea's nuclear test ever stopped to consider that it might actually be Kim Jong Il's fault? . . . and that North Korean's "Dear Leader" is sitting back laughing at the internecine warfare that currently passes for a foreign-policy debate in the United States.
Clinton did all he could and enjoyed some success; the Agreed Framework did freeze Pyongyang's known plutonium assets for a significant period of time. Otherwise, North Korea could have stockpiled perhaps 10 times as much plutonium. The evidence is also overwhelming, however, that North Korea was already exploring a uranium-based nuclear option, even while conducting love-ins with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and South Korean President Kim Dae Jung during their historic 2000 visits to Pyongyang.
Bush was also right in approaching the problem multilaterally; the six-party talks put Seoul firmly at the table (righting an Agreed Framework wrong). Strictly bilateral talks would have facilitated Pyongyang's "divide-and-conquer" approach, aimed at dividing wedges between the various players by making different promises (or threats) to each.
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