This is great news.
North Korea agreed Monday to end its nuclear weapons program in return for security, economic and energy benefits, potentially easing tensions with the United States after a two-year standoff over the North's efforts to build atomic bombs.
The United States, North Korea and four other nations participating in negotiations in Beijing signed a draft accord in which the North promised to abandon efforts to produce nuclear weapons and re-admit international inspectors to its nuclear facilities.
Foreign powers said they would provide aid, diplomatic assurances and security guarantees and consider North Korea's demands for a light-water nuclear reactor.
I don't know enough about the issue to offer much further commentary on it, but assuming the agreement evolves into a solid plan (and that, unfortunately, can be a big assumption), this is something to celebrate. The breakthrough happened as Bush administration officials were preparing to scurry back home without an accord and switch to a purely punitive approach. That the Koreans salvaged the talks with this deal is excellent proof that they did indeed want to negotiate and that they were not, as many administration hardliners said, a waste of time. That we were willing to offer them everything everyone said they always wanted proves that Bush's policy, for the past two years, has been fairly idiotic, and we could've had this deal long ago. One's got to wonder if the reason we put it all on the table now is that Bush's poll numbers are plummeting and he needed a major foreign policy accomplishment to push them back up. Was a guarantee of security locked behind sort of "Break in Case of Polling Free-Fall" glass case?
It should also be noted that the country emerging with their prestige improved is China. Our unwillingness to enter two-way talks forced us to get Beijing to broker the negotiations. They complied and ended up moderating the whole conference, cajoling both countries when they became intransigent and laboriously forcing the talks towards conclusion. If we'd done this on our own, it'd have been America leading the world again. Since we forced China into the game, this one looks to be their coup.
Brad has more.
