By Andy Jackson
After spending nearly 21 years on the U.S. State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism, North Korea was removed from the list last week by the Bush administration.
Soon after, Pyongyang announced that a new agreement had been reached that will get the six-party process moving again.
The latest deal was brokered last week when U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill flew to Pyongyang after North Korea began reversing the disabling process at its Yongbyon nuclear facility. The timing of the move gives the appearance of America negotiators caving into North Korean provocations.
In theory, the U.S. has gained North Korean cooperation on its uranium-based program and proliferation activities in exchange for removing North Korea from the terror list, but implementation of Pyongyang's part of the agreement is still months away at best.
I know it may sound quaint in this day and age, but perhaps the decision to remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism should have in some way been connected to Pyongyang stopping its support of terrorism.
And what are the issues that kept North Korea on the list since January of 1988?
― The North Korean government still fails to accept responsibility for the 1987 KAL 858 and 1983 Rangoon bombings, which killed 136 people between them.
― It continues to harbor members of the terrorist Japanese Red Army.
― It refuses to extradite Shin Gwang-soo, Choi Sun-chol and other suspects to stand trial for their roles in the kidnapping of Japanese citizens.
― It has sold weapons and equipment to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam as recently as last year.
― Working with Iran and Syria, it has provided Hezbollah with weapons and may have even provided the terrorist organization with training.
Would you care to guess how many of those issues were addressed before the Bush administration removed North Korea from the state sponsors of terrorism list?
The administration's threat to put North Korea back on the terrorism list if progress is not made on denuclearization is the punch line to a bad joke. Considering the supposed red lines North Korea has broken through (uranium hexafluoride to Libya, nuclear assistance to Syria) without a strong response from Washington, it is hard to give such a threat much credit.
Tokyo's response to the new deal has been muted so far, but Prime Minister Taro Aso publicly criticized it and has vowed against providing any aid to North Korea without a resolution to the abductees issue.
Seoul officially supports the move, although there are worries that the agreement is at least partially responsible for North Korea's recent threat to cut off all ties with South Korea as the deal makes Pyongyang believe it can play the allies off each other
So, in one swoop, Bush's North Korea team has given the impression that the United States will appease extortion, undercut America's allies in Northeast Asia and de-legitimized American law.
And what did they get in return?
In theory, North Korea has finally agreed to a verification protocol for its nuclear programs. The protocol will be formally agreed to in the next round of the Six Party talks.
However, the protocol is unlikely to contain provisions for short notice inspections of suspected sites. Such provisions are standard for International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear proliferation investigations and are called for in North Korea's case by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718. Instead, inspections will be based on ``mutual agreement," which is tantamount to giving Pyongyang a veto on when and where inspections can take place.
The conduct of the Bush administration at this point is worse than anything we could expect from either a McCain or Obama presidency.
McCain recognizes the need to deal with North Korea comprehensively and in a way that does not alienate our allies in the region. Writing in the journal Foreign Affairs, he said, ``Future talks must take into account North Korea's ballistic missile programs, its abduction of Japanese citizens, and its support for terrorism and proliferation." He also criticized the lack of coordination between Washington, Seoul and Tokyo before the recent agreement was announced.
It would be hard to imagine John McCain being as vacillating on North Korea as Bush has been.
For his part, Obama has said he would largely supplant the Six Party process with a more one-on-one approach towards North Korea, but at this point that would only be making official a process the Bush administration has already begun. To his credit, Obama has backpedaled from his earlier pledge to meet with dictators like Kim Jong-il ``without preconditions."
Also, a conciliatory approach towards North Korea by Obama would be viewed as part of a larger policy rather than a caving into North Korean provocations, which is how much of the world sees the multiple shifts in Bush's policy towards Pyongyang.
In their most recent statements, Obama cautiously supports and McCain cautiously opposes Bush's recent agreement with Pyongyang.
Of course, it is possible that Chris Hill has just sealed a deal that will pave the way towards North Korean nuclear disarmament, that pariah state's more egregious human rights abuses and eventual normalization of ties between Washington and Pyongyang.
Possible, but not likely.
The more likely prospect is that the Bush team will pull a play out of former Korean president Roh Moo-hyun's book and stick the next administration with a deal that is almost impossible to implement.
I hope that George Bush, Condoleezza Rice and Christopher Hill can at least spare us from that dismal prospect.
Andy Jackson teaches American government in the Lakeland College bridge program at Ansan College, Gyeonggi Province. He can be reached at andyinrok@lycos.com.