# Posted 7:00 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

WHEN DOVES ATTACK, PART II: "The Agonist" is the nom de blog of a fellow student of International Relations who has traveled the world in search of truth, enlightenment, and investment capital. Sean-Paul has even taught English in South Korea, which perhaps explains why his posts are so much more intelligent than those of the elder Democratic statesmen who polemicize in the NY Times.

The Agonist's most recent piece-de-resistance is an in-depth look at the Agreed Framework that resolved the 1994 crisis on the Korean peninsula. For those who not familiar with the details of the current crisis, the best place to start might well be Sean-Paul's Korean Primer.

Now, despite my gratuitously French-laden praise of Sean-Paul, I assure you that we stand far apart on some critical issues relating to North Korea. Most important of all is his insistence, drawing on Josh Marshall, that the President has embarassed himself by letting Kim Jong Il call his bluff on the nuclear issue.

Bush's critics are right that his administration has not had any sort of consistent policy regarding North Korea and that the administration's insistence that it won't launch a preemptive attack on North Korea shows just how superficial its commitment to its National Security Strategy really is. But neither of those facts mean that Kim has been (or will be) successful in resisting international pressure.

Another significant difference between myself and the critics is that they stand united behind their insistence that Bush ought to negotiate with the North. Yet while calling for negotiation, not one of them can actually bring himself to say that the US should reward the North Koreans with additional economic aid in exchange for their violation of the 1994 treaty. In fact, both Leon Fuerth and Josh Marshall say that rewarding the Norh for its deception is something that we definitely can't do.

In order to support their call for negotiations, the administration's critics avoid any serious consideration of whether its current strategy -- working with regional powers to isolate the North -- might work. Kevin Drum says that "we should either launch a military attack or else go to the table and negotiate" since all previous sanctions have been a failure. Might that be because we've been shipping fuel to North Korea since 1994?

According to Josh Marshall, "The administration says it has a plan: isolate the North Koreans economically and diplomatically. But how serious a plan is that?" Well, the UN, the Japanese and the Russians all think its the best idea anyone has had so far. Marshall dismisses out of hand that the Chinese will go along with it, but such judgment is premature.

The final trick in the critics' playbook is their insistence that it is the United States rather than the North Koreans who are responsible for the current crisis. In admirable effort to demonstrate the relevance of Star Wars to international relations, Kevin D. compares Bush's provocation of the North to the Emperor's provocation of Luke, which results in the Emperor being thrown down a bottomless energy shaft. (If you need this explained to you, call Pejman.)

Josh Marshall just asks "why in the hell did [the US] provoke this situation in the first place?"

Question for Josh and Kevin: What was the President supposed to do after the CIA provided him with compelling evidenfce that the North was pursuing an illegal uranium-enrichment program designed to produce nuclear weapons?

Inaction might have delayed a US-North Korean conflict, but that might have given the North time to mount its uranium warheads on a missile pointed at Japan. In addition, confronting the North now -- in the aftermath of a unanimous Security Council decision to condemn Iraq's nuclear program -- ensures that the UN will have to apply the same strict standard to North Korea as it has to Iraq.

I may not know how to resolve the current crisis, but I do know that no critic of the administration's approach has come at all close to suggesting a viable alternative.

UPDATE/CLARIFICATION: In response to my mail, I just want to say that I actively support the administration's approach, rather than simply accepting it because the critics haven't come up with anything better. I don't offer an alternative to the administration's strategy because I believe that it is doing what's best right now. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion