The key to NK is in China. If China pulls the plug, the Kim Dynasty will collapse like a house of cards. If they prop Kim II up, he will take any money Bush may be foolish enough to give him, and spit in Bush's face again.
It is time for one-to-one negotiations, not between Bush and NK (a waste of time, and invitation to extortion by other would-be nuclear powers), but rather between Bush and China. Bush should be willing to meet reasonable Chinese demands, eg (1) that the USA will guarantee real money to deal with consequences of NK's collapse, and (2) that a peaceable post-Kim Korea should be in China's sphere of influence. On the other hand, China should be told that continued stalling, even in the face of reasonable offers, will chill our mutually profitable economic cooperation, and end China's monopoly as the only nuclear power of northeast Asia.
The South Korean government has also been propping up Kim's regime. If China comes around, however, they can easily be made to follow.
The agonizingly drawn-out endgame for North Korea is at least part payback for the penny-wise-pound-foolish stinginess of Bush 41 and Clinton toward post-Soviet Russia -- a shameful repudiation of the USA's Marshall Plan heritage. Koreans (both North and South) fearful of change repeatedly point to the agony of Yeltsin's 1990s "Reform" period as something to avoid.
--Hugo S. Cunningham
