U.S. Can Still Head Off a Nuclear N. Korea

In the wake of its aborted seizure of a North Korean vessel carrying Scud missiles to Yemen, the Bush administration is now confronting a serious crisis on the Korean peninsula. Thursday, Pyongyang announced that it would take steps -- including restarting operation of a small nuclear reactor -- to end the freeze on its nuclear weapons program put in place by a 1994 accord with the United States. By restarting the reactor, which can produce nuclear bomb-making material, North Korea has fired a clear warning shot across Washington’s bow.

The revelation in October that Pyongyang had been conducting a secret program, based on uranium enrichment to produce nuclear weapons, has provoked a slow-motion confrontation with the United States.

But that program pales in comparison with Pyongyang’s more extensive facilities for the production of plutonium, another material for building nuclear weapons. If those facilities, which have not been operating as a result of the 1994 agreement, were unfrozen, the North could build a large stockpile of weapons. Restarting the small reactor may be a step in that direction.

Thursday’s action significantly escalates the crisis, but it was also calculated. Restarting the reactor makes perfect sense in response to the recent suspension of heavy fuel oil deliveries to North Korea after the discovery of its secret program. As part of the negotiations leading up to the 1994 accord, Washington agreed to provide Pyongyang with heavy fuel oil if it stopped operation of that reactor.

Pyongyang knows full well that its latest move will not provoke an immediate confrontation. The significance of restarting the reactor is that bomb- making plutonium will accumulate in the fuel rods inside the reactor over time. Then those rods will have to be unloaded and undergo “reprocessing.” That will take months.

In contrast, if Pyongyang has removed the seals from all its nuclear facilities and begun to reprocess the fuel rods it already has in storage, as some reports seem to indicate, the situation is far more serious. In that case, the U.S. and its allies would have to face the unpalatable choice of launching a preemptive strike against the nuclear facilities or acquiesce to Pyongyang building a growing arsenal of nuclear weapons. This would undermine the nonproliferation regime and provoke serious new tensions in Northeast Asia.

Pyongyang’s most recent move is designed to take advantage of the Bush administration’s preoccupation with Iraq. The North probably calculates that its chances of coming out on top in any confrontation with the U.S. will be better if Washington’s military and diplomatic resources are tied up in the Mideast.

What are Pyongyang’s objectives in provoking this confrontation? The North Koreans are making the best of a bad situation. Caught red-handed violating the 1994 agreement, they are now trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Coupled with Pyongyang’s threatening pronouncements has been a constant drumbeat that it wants to negotiate with Washington.

We should make no mistake: Without a solution to the current crisis, North Korea is going nuclear. Many in Pyongyang look to emulate India and Pakistan, recent nuclear weapons states. They may see this crisis as their last chance.

Whatever Pyongyang’s motivations, the Bush administration now must face the prospect of a serious confrontation. Since the October revelation, Washington has stitched together an ineffective response based on the hope that the North will back down.

In part, the administration has been hampered by its own moral repulsion to dealing with North Korea. In part, close allies have hampered it, particularly South Korea, which wants to solve the crisis through diplomacy. The U.S. also has been hampered by its own wishful thinking that any crisis will take months, if not years, to play out.

However, the pace of events may not be Washington’s to determine. North Korea has made that quite clear.

Coping effectively will require using all the arrows in the administration’s quiver. Tough measures -- such as seeking international sanctions or reinforcing American military forces on the peninsula -- have a definite role. But so does diplomacy, by using negotiations to make tough demands on the North. If Pyongyang refuses, the U.S. will be in a better position to secure international support to enforce those demands.

If Washington exercises responsible leadership, that will only redound in its favor. If not, the results could be catastrophic, triggering a downward spiral of serious tensions and forcing the U.S. and its allies to the brink of war.