North Korea and our failure to learn

Well, they're at it again. This time I can't place all the blame on the Obama administration. Once again, North Korea has snookered the United States. When will we learn? It would be funny except Iran can watch and play the same game.

Last week our State Department proudly announced the umpteenth breakthrough toward the goal of denuclearizing North Korea. The two sides agreed that Pyongyang would suspend uranium enrichment and other "nuclear activities" at its Yongbyon facility, allow very limited international inspection, and implement a moratorium on long-range missile launches. In State's telling on Feb. 29, we gave nothing in return for the North's (apparently) unilateral concessions, "designed to improve the atmosphere for dialogue and demonstrate its commitment to denuclearization."

We've heard this song before. The announcement contains nothing new or different from a long string of past "commitments" North Korea has broken and lied about with impunity. Pyongyang has repeatedly violated Security Council resolutions requiring it to cease nuclear and missile activities.

Here's one problem with the "new" agreement. International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors will be limited to the Yongbyon facility, which is like looking at North Korea through a straw—and at the wrong place no less. The overwhelming mass of the North's important nuclear-weapons activities have long been deeply buried in hidden locations, unknown even to U.S. intelligence, let alone IAEA inspectors.

We've also heard the one about missiles before. There was a similar moratorium in 1998, after a North Korean Taepodong missile panicked Japan by flying over it and landing to its east. That moratorium also covered only launch testing, and not the countless other critical aspects of ballistic-missile development. In response, Pyongyang simply shifted to deeper cooperation with Iran, which uses the same Soviet-era Scud-missile technology, the ban thus driving the two rogue states closer.

But here's the most disgusting part of the agreement. The U. S. says we gave nothing to the North Koreans for this deal. Oh, yeah? According to The Wall Street Journal, we are providing 240,000 tons of food aid that will almost certainly be diverted to the North Korean military and political favorites.

Keep in mind this contradicts our own statements in the past. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last year that "we do not intend to reward the North just for returning to the table. We will not give them anything new for actions they have already agreed to take."

So now we have played the game once again, and the mullahs in Tehran are sure to ask us to play this same game with them. It's sad.