COMMENT Korean peace requires US
compromise, troop exit By David
Scofield
SEOUL - As the North Korea talks lumber
on and "deals" reminiscent of those that failed 10 years
ago again gain currency, one issue is crucial:
extrication of US Forces from Korea. In order to pull
the United States from the wreckage of 50 years of
quasi-peace on the Korean Peninsula, Washington should
compromise, accept key proposals from Seoul and commit
to removing its troops from South Korea. That's unlikely
to happen, but it should.
Deals and agreements
should be moved aside to make way for a treaty, a
regionally defined and enforced legal framework that
will bring an end to the 50-year-old Korean War
ceasefire that characterizes the peninsula - a legal
agreement predicated on a withdrawal of the US Forces in
Korea (USFK).
The current impasse is not a
product of badly constructed agreements, per se. It's
not the deals that were flawed, the dysfunction lies
with the people with whom the United States must
negotiate. Earlier bilateral agreements with North Korea
have included workable frameworks, but all have ended in
failure, corrupted by North Korea's obfuscation and
deception.
Leadership change in Pyongyang would
improve the prospects for peace, but that isn't likely.
Still it is to be hoped that some day there will be a
weaker central government in the North, one more
responsive to its starving masses, one far more
replaceable than the present dynasty of despots.
But without regional consensus for change, which
seems about as unlikely as ever, the US is left pushing
the region down a path that it is not prepared to take.
US should consider Seoul's 'freeze'
idea The United States should consider what other
actors, including South Korea, are proposing. Seoul has
been talking of a proposal, a starting point, predicated
on the slippery notion of a "freeze". Apparently this
would only involve North Korea's declared plutonium
weapons program, conceivably allowing the highly
enriched uranium (HEU) program to continue - it is hard
to "freeze" something that is not acknowledged.
And if the tough talk from South Korean Minister
of Unification Jeong Se-hyun is any indication, the
issue will probably be avoided for the foreseeable
future. Jeong was quoted recently in the Washington Post
encouraging greater flexibility from the United States,
asserting that pushing North Korea to admit to the HEU
program would cause Pyongyang to lose face, hurting its
pride and setting back the prospects of genuine dialogue
and eventual stability. Instead, Jeong argued, the HEU
issue should be dealt with indirectly, at a later date.
So what is the US to do? China enjoys the status
quo, comfortable and secure in its asymmetrical
relationship with the Koreans, North and South. Russia
has little interest in the region; the dilapidated state
of the Russia's far eastern outposts, namely
Vladivostok, speak volumes about Moscow's commitment to
the region, or lack thereof to date. Japan shares the
United States' logical distrust of the serial liars in
the North Korean government, but Tokyo is focused more
on its nationals - abducted long ago by North Korea -
than on the nuclear threat from Pyongyang. And Japan is
more than capable of defending itself from North Korea,
and could itself become a nuclear power in mere weeks,
some say, if it so chose.
The solution? Deal. Or
more, specifically sign on to the South Korean
initiative. As inadequate, and even distasteful, as the
idea is, the United States really has no other choice
now. North Korean compliance will likely always prove
impossible to ensure. Verifiability? Challenge any
senior official with experience with North Korea to
utter the words "ensured verifiability" with a straight
face - no one can verify food distribution, much less
secret weapons facilities.
Clinton had been
willing to deal Former US president Bill Clinton
was willing to deal. He paid North Korean leader Kim
Jong-il US$300 million in aid to verify an empty warren
of tunnels in 1999. That was $300 million to tour a
hollowed-out mountain, something North Korea has no
shortage of, given founder Kim Il-sung's propensity for
securing strategically important assets deep
underground. Indeed, the Koreans have been tunneling
non-stop for 50 years, making Iraq look positively
transparent in comparison. It also raises obvious
questions about the Yongbyon nuclear facility, a
strangely obvious, above-ground site.
A new deal
today would be tough, but it could be the only way. It
would involve more rewards for continued bad behavior -
something the US says it will never grant - and aid for
the North "re-freezing" what was supposed to have
remained frozen through the last agreement. But with one
crucial addition: the complete removal of US force
presence on the peninsula - the United States maintains
an estimated 37,000 troops in South Korea. That would be
coupled with North Korea's acknowledgment of South Korea
as a sovereign state - the North still does not
recognize the national sovereignty of its brothers in
the South. And there would be the signing of a peace
treaty ending the 50-year-old ceasefire that has defined
the peninsula since 1953.
North Korea has argued
for 50 years that peace is impossible as long as US
troops remain in South Korea. But the US raison
d'etre for staying - the protection of South Korea
from the bellicose North - has become strikingly out of
sync with contemporary South Korean perceptions of the
region. And so the time is right to allow the Koreans to
work out their own issues and for the region itself to
take the lead in drafting conflict-resolution formulas.
After all, a majority of South Koreans now view US
President George W Bush as a greater threat to
peninsular security than Kim Jong-il.
It's time
for the US to shift gears and focus on extricating
itself from what has become its Korean quagmire.
The alternative is anachronistic and puts the US
in an increasingly dangerous and untenable position.
Times have changed; with strong support from President
Roh Moo-hyun, South Korea has embarked on a new
"independent" foreign policy. The South has declared its
intention to chart its own course in its dealings with
the North, negotiating compromises and agreements that
may not be in the United States' best interests. And why
shouldn't Seoul decide its own foreign policy according
to its own needs, not Washington's? South Korea has
developed tremendously over the past few decades,
economically, politically and socially.
Toeing the US line no longer works for
Seoul The notion that the South should toe the US
line is increasingly out of sync with South Korea's
evolved self-perception and global position. While South
Korea may feel comfortable, deliberately overlooking the
nefarious nature of the North Korean regime, the US
cannot and should not follow Seoul's path. But embedded
within South Korea as the US is, militarily and
politically, it has become unworkable and impractical
for Washington to pursue peninsular policies divergent
from South Korea's.
So as this second round of
talks wraps up, it is time for the US to take the
initiative. North Korea has been allowed to play offense
throughout, setting the agenda and even the timing of
discussions. It's time to turn the tables. Peace and
reconciliation, "more for more", "steaks and
sledgehammers" - whatever it takes.
As
distasteful as it is to concede more to the
dysfunctional figures who rule the North, the dynamics
of the region have made any other option virtually
impossible. A treaty predicated on the swift withdrawal
of US troops puts the issue of North Korea and regional
security where it belongs - with the region. The
region's actors bear primary responsibility for success
because it is they - not the US - who ultimately will
reap the direct rewards of peace and stability, and it
is they who shoulder the burden of possible failure and
the costs of conflict and instability.
The
United States maintains an estimated 37,000 troops in
South Korea and a roughly equivalent number of
dependants, contractors and others associated with the
military. Washington plans to close bases in Seoul and
bases to the north, along the Demilitarized Zone, and
relocate them elsewhere by 2007; an unknown number of
troops also may be withdrawn from the nation. The deal
to relocate US forces initially was made in 1991, to be
completed in 1996, but it was scrapped because of the
threat posed by North Korea's nuclear program.
David Scofield is a lecturer at the
Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, Kyung Hee
University, Seoul.
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