"Smart Haass" has a nice ring to it, yes?
WSJ op-ed by Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and holder of the George Kennan slot at State under Bush-Cheney (early, not late).
Call out text summarizes it perfectly:
Pass the South Korea free trade agreement and give up negotiating with Kim Jong Il.
The FTA has been sitting with Congress for 3 years. Instead of passing some meaningless message, why not pass that instead?
(Feel free to slap your own forehead and utter, "Duh!")
Other than that, skip the usual diplo show with nutty Kim and signal that you're just waiting for his death to screw the place over as much as possible.
Okay, I spiced up that last bit.
Reason why? Make it clear to China that when the event goes down, we'll just watch while things get dicey for them as much or more than they do for Seoul.
Meanwhile, we should publicly explore the reality of a unified Korea with our southern friends, says Haass, and let China come to that conversation as it sees fear--I mean, fit.
May have spiced up that last-last bit a bit too.