Do not make the mistake of thinking that because my conclusion is the same as another person's that my reasoning is the same
This crisis is a direct result of the "Axis of Evil" riff. Both Iran and North Korea see the USofA's annexation of Iraq as a warning as significant as a quarrantine sign on your next-door neighbor's lawn.
Months ago, North Korea said they'd forgo this nuclear nonsense in exchange for a non-aggression pact between the USofA and themselves. Who could blame them?
…The most immediate challenge came on Thursday, when North Korea startled a six-nation conference in Beijing by openly threatening to make a formal declaration that it is now a nuclear-armed power, and to conduct a nuclear test that would put to rest any notions that it is bluffing. In public, the White House dismissed the statements as another unsubtle North Korean attempt at blackmail, with a spokesman noting the country's "long history of making inflammatory comments."
In private, Mr. Bush's national security aides were not so sanguine. While the North Koreans alternately blow hot and cold ? threatening to shoot off missiles and nukes one moment, then hinting at disarmament deals if the price is right ? they have backed up almost every public threat they have made in the past 12 months. They promised to throw international inspectors out of the country, then did it; they threatened to withdraw from the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and then withdrew; they said they would make bomb-grade plutonium, and American intelligence agencies now believe they are producing it, if slowly.
So despite the administration's public line that there is no crisis afoot, almost everyone in the administration, which is deeply divided on North Korea strategy, says this is a race against time. "If they blow off a nuke test, this whole process of negotiation is over," one senior national security aide said on Friday. American officials have also told their allies that if talks drag fruitlessly past October, they will be ended for fear that Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader, is playing for time in which to reprocess plutonium.
The informal October deadline may offer a hint about what Mr. Bush means when he says he will not "tolerate" a North Korea gone nuclear. By then, the hawks in the Pentagon and Vice President Dick Cheney's office, who have never believed a negotiated solution is possible with the North, will be able to say that Mr. Bush tried diplomacy and that it failed. In fact, those arguing for a patient diplomatic approach appear to be losing ground: one of the State Department's more moderate North Korea hands, Charles Pritchard, resigned last week, after months of behind-the-scenes battling to get the administration to put serious incentives on the table for the North to think about.