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North Korea: Hexagonal
headache
By John Feffer
(Posted with permission from Foreign
Policy in Focus)
It is a testament to
the absurdly low expectations attached to the diplomatic
abilities of both North Korea and the United States that
pundits have avoided the obvious conclusion concerning
the recently concluded six-party talks in Beijing.
They were a disaster.
Here's the rub,
though: the hardliners in Washington got exactly what
they wanted and may get hoisted by their own hubris as a
result.
The two indicators frequently cited as
evidence that the talks went smoothly are: none of the
six delegations stormed out of the meeting hall and all
sides agreed to meet again within two months. For a
brief moment the day after the delegates went home,
North Korea told the truth about the talks - that they
were a failed effort and probably a waste of time -
before returning to a more open-ended pledge to continue
participating. Without any sign of compromise from
Washington, though, North Korea is pushing forward with
its nuclear program along with the threat to test a
nuclear weapon.
Hardliners such as Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the State Department's
John Bolton are probably greeting this result with
little jigs of exultation. Pyongyang couldn't have
followed their script any better. Its skepticism
concerning future talks has made North Korea look
militantly ham-fisted. Russia and China are ever more
frustrated with their erstwhile ally. And a nuclear
test, should North Korea be so technologically equipped
or politically stupid to hold one, would be the
checkered flag to signal the final lap toward regime
change.
The hardliners in Washington have made
no secret of their distaste for negotiations with North
Korea and so contrived to ensure that the six-party
talks would fail. For instance, they made sure that the
talks would not involve any negotiations. Negotiations
require give and take, and despite rumors floated in the
press about potential flexibility on a non-aggression
pact or a package of economic incentives, there was no
wiggle room in the US position in Beijing.
This
uncompromising stance is all the more remarkable given
that both sides are talking about roughly the same
elements of a deal - ending North Korea's nuclear
program in exchange for various economic, political, and
security guarantees. The chief disagreement, at least on
the surface, concerns sequence. In other words, should
North Korea freeze its program first or should the
United States offer security guarantees first? That the
two sides couldn't begin to address the issue of
sequence in Beijing suggests that the talking cure is
not fully subscribed to by either side.
The
six-party talks were flawed as well because the
particular multilateral format only encouraged North
Korea's infamous "cornered badger" behavior. Outnumbered
five to one over the validity of its nuclear program,
North Korea couldn't effectively marshal what remains of
comradely feeling in China and Russia. Nor could it
exploit the obvious fact that the United States can only
count on limited support from one country in the region
(Japan) for a more aggressive solution to the standoff.
The informal discussions, particularly between the US
and North Korea, were scant. The formality of the
presentations precluded much in the way of creative
thinking (for example, a joint economic deal from Russia
and South Korea) or creative pressure (on either North
Korea or the United States to be more flexible).
China's role as convener of the talks was, of
course, a plus. However, it has come up against a
stubborn law of diplomacy: you can bring six parties to
the table, but you can't force them to compromise. This
was the primary flaw of the meeting. Hardliners on both
sides have been, at some level, happy to pursue "talks
without negotiations". North Korea wants more time to
develop its nuclear program. The United States wants
more time to see if the government in Pyongyang will
collapse. To move from talks to negotiations, both sides
will have to be pressured into more flexible positions.
North Korea's reputation in the world these days
is not exactly sterling. The administration of US
President George W Bush wanted, through the six-party
talks, to isolate the country further by demonstrating
that it can't play well with five others. To do so,
however, the US delegation had to act just as
uncompromisingly. This lack of diplomacy prompted China
to declare after the talks that US policy was a "main
problem", a sign that the hardliners in Washington may
well have overreached themselves. If another round of
talks do take place within the next two months, the
hardliners might not be able to pull off a repeat
performance.
The flaws in the structure and
outcome of the six-party talks should not lead to the
conclusion that engagement and diplomacy are failed
options. Neither side has yet pursued engagement, not
since relations took a turn for the worse when Bush
assumed office. Rather, responsibility for the hexagonal
headache in Beijing should be attributed to the failures
of non-engagement. Diplomacy is still the best method of
resolving the current crisis. We just haven't seen any
of it yet.
John Feffer (johnfeffer@aol.com), editor of
Power Trip: US Unilateralism and Global Strategy
after September 11 (Seven Stories Press), writes
regularly for Foreign Policy in Focus.
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