Monday, July 27, 2015

The Value and Possibilities That Negotiations Bring

Why would North Korea want a nuclear deal like Iran just got? North Korea already has nuclear devices!

I nearly spewed my coffee across the screen when I read this:

Sydney Seiler, U.S. special envoy for now-defunct six-party talks on ending the North's nuclear program, said the United states left the door open to talks with the North when it is willing to end its diplomatic isolation.

"The Iran deal demonstrates the value and possibilities that negotiation bring," Seiler told reporters in the South Korean capital, Seoul.

"It demonstrates again our willingness, when we have a willing counterpart, and it demonstrates our flexibility when the DPRK makes a decision that it wants to take a different path," he said, referring to North Korea by the initials of its formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

How much more flexibility does North Korea need from us? We already let them cheat on the 1994 deal that let them go nuclear. Are we now supposed to sell Kim Jong-Un long range ballistic missiles to make his cheating fully worthwhile?

Why on Earth would nuclear North Korea need a deal like Iran's which allows Iran to go nuclear, too?

It is far more accurate to say that Iran got a deal like North Korea got.

Ah yes, the value and possibilities nuclear weapons that negotiation bring when we have a counterpart willing to pretend they don't have nuclear weapons programs, if we are willing to demonstrate our flexibility by pretending to believe them!

UPDATE: North Korea has rejected negotiations, insisting their nuclear status must be recognized. The author explains that any hope that the Iran deal would push North Korea back to the table are dashed:

Clearly, the differences between North Korea and Iran are vast.

North Korea has already gone down the negotiations road and come out on the other end with a small but potentially threatening nuclear arsenal.

Huh? Vast differences? Whatever the vast differences between the countries of Iran and North Korea, the deals seem eerily similar.

The only difference is time. North Korea got their deal in 1994, which allowed us to pretend we solved the problem and which shielded North Korea while they went nuclear; and Iran just got their deal this year.