A recent report by a distinguished US task force says the United States should use incentives, not bludgeons, in dealing with North Korea in order to defuse the nuclear crisis and persuade Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear-weapons program permanently. The panel, however, got it wrong and put faith in the duplicitous North Korean regime. It should have been listening to the North Korean refugees who fled the "worker's paradise" before it pontificated to the United States about the wisdom of using carrots, not sticks. It's the latest case of "see no evil" when it comes to North Korea. True to form, North Korea is edging away from its pledge to participate in the fourth round of the six-party talks. The North Korean Foreign Ministry declared through the state-run Rodong Shinmun that "psychological" campaigns of misinformation perpetuated by the United States are deliberate attempts to undermine North Korea by creating the perception that the nation is in chaos. This being North Korea's raison du jour for reneging on its commitment. Perhaps more oil, cash and another glass factory built at China's expense (widely reported preconditions to North Korea's attendance at the last three meetings) will prompt Pyongyang to honor that which it already has promised so many times before. Or at least it might compel participation for the short term until another opportunity presents itself for North Korea to blackmail the region into paying still more for what the North was supposedly bound to do more than a decade ago - dismantle its nuclear program.
The North Koreans are nothing if not consistent, as they have reneged on every nuclear agreement entered into over the past 15 years, and not just with the United States. The 1992 Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was signed by North Korea and South Korea. Of course, we now know North Korea was violating that agreement virtually before the ink was dry...