Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 9 February 2005

Two interesting articles in the NYT today on North Korea.

In first ("U.S. Asking China to Press North Korea to End Its Nuclear Program," David E. Sanger and William J. Broad," NYT, 9 Feb 05, pulled off site), we hear that Bush sends a special emissary to Beijing to deliver a personal letter to President Hu Jintao, which urges him "to intensify diplomatic pressure."

China is promising to send a delegation to Pyongyang this month, but has also asked the White House not to issue any scary statements in the meantime. Bush has avoided mentioning the stories about Kim's nuclear sales that recently appeared in the press.

Our diplomats say that China was "surprised by the quality of the scientific evidence" about North Korea's nuclear efforts. "Until now, the Chinese, at least in public, had dismissed American charges that North Korea had a secret nuclear program to build weapons from uranium, based on technology it obtained from A.Q. Khan [current Time cover boy], the Pakistani nuclear scientist."

Hu actually took the meeting with Green and another midlevel American bureaucrat, which is "highly unusual," because of their low standing on the food chain.

In the second piece ("Bush Bites His Tongue," by Nicholas D. Kristof, NYT, 9 Feb 05, pulled off site), Kristof makes his own comparison to Nixon going to China, stating his opinion that connectivity will do most to undermine the regime quickly, along the lines of the embryonic economic connectivity both China and South Korea are producing with the Hermit Kingdom.

But Kristof also says this:

North Korea is the eeriest and most totalitarian country I've ever visited, making even Saddam Hussein's Iraq seem normal by comparison. I realized how regimented the entire country was when I stopped two girls randomly on the street for an interview on a 1989 trip and the girls started praising their leaders--reciting identical lines in perfect unison.

In his new book ["Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader"], Mr. [Bradley] Martin tells the story of how one of the Dear Leader's assistants, while drunk, told his wife about his boss's womanizing. The wife, apparently a true believer in the North Korean system, was shocked and wrote a letter to the leadership to protest this immorality.

The Dear Leader had the woman brought to him, then denounced her before a crowd and ordered her shot. At that point, her husband begged to be allowed to kill her. Graciously acceding, Mr. Kim handed him a gun to kill his own wife.

So this is a regime that is not just menacing, but monstrous."

Kristof fears Bush will pursue a harder line and argues against it, but the key distinction here is one worth mentioning vis-a-vis the Axis of Evil's other remaining pillar--Iran. Iran is basically a tired authoritarian system that's ripe for reform from within, led by a government long at odds with the mullahocracy. No such opposition exists within North Korea, which isn't just authoritarian, but truly totalitarian, meaning it rules over the people's entire lives from top to bottom.

I don't believe you negotiate with totalitarian leaders, but that you do try to kill authoritarian regimes with connectivity. To me, this is the key distinction, and it's why I say coopt Iran but kill Kim.