■"Northern Exposure: Seoul's food aid only helps Kim Jong Il," op-ed by Jason Lim, New York Times, 21 September 2005, p. A27.

■"A Skeptical View: North Korea gets its way-yet again," op-ed by Nicholas Eberstadt, Wall Street Journal, 21 September 2005, p. 26.

■"U.S. Says North Korean Demand for Reactor Won't Derail Accord," by Steven R. Weisman, New York Times, 21 September 2005, p. A6.

Great op-ed by Lim on how Seoul's turn-a-blind-eye on Kim only keeps a population living in inexcusable misery for the long haul. All because the South fears the price tag of the country's rebuilding. With relatives like these, who needs enemies?

Kim is worth taking down solely for the 1-2 million he's killed by starvation and malnutrition over the past decade.

The White House and State Department might be happy to stick with their Beijing Declaration, but that's all it is--a declaration. It's like Al Capone promising to pay his taxes all of a sudden, even as his nefarious and brutal criminal empire keeps humming along ("Well, if you'll pay taxes on it all, then fine!"). So we get another false promise from Kim on WMD. Getting him to pay his "WMD taxes" while a generation of kids is stunted, kept in the closet that is disconnected North Korea, is a truly false victory, something only Neville Chamberlain in his prime could celebrate.

And yet watch the major papers celebrate this "breakthrough" in their editorials. Oh yes, the great "diplomatic victory" signifying nothing but ending some sound and fury over the "unilateral" Bush Administration.

Read the great op-ed by Nick Eberstadt. We are deluding ourselves on this deal:

Contrary to conventional wisdom, which holds the North Korean state to be an unremittingly hostile "negotiating partner," history actually demonstrates that Pyongyang can be a highly obliging interlocutor under certain very specific conditions. All that is necessary to "get to yes" with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is to concede every important point demanded by the North Korea side while sacrificing vital interests of one's own.

You tell 'em, Nick.

Enthusiasts contend that the North Korean regime, after two years of tough talks with five other countries united in the desire to force it to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, has at last agreed to a step-by-step process that will eventually resolve the crisis. In reality, nothing of the sort has taken place. A careful reading of the Sept. 19 joint statement suggests instead that North Korean negotiators have just achieved a stunning advance in their government's quest to "normalize" its nuclear weapons program. There's also been equally momentous progress in Pyongyang's longstanding campaign to sunder the U.S.-South Korean military alliance. Wittingly or otherwise, the U.S. negotiating team has executed an apparent cave-in-embracing precepts crucial to North Korean objectives but inimical to Washington's own.

Simply put, we're written into an agreement wording that legitimizes North Korea having nuclear power and set ourselves up for a "denuclearized Korean peninsula" that will never be. The U.S. has no nukes in South Korea and South Korea has no nukes, so it's unclear how one "denuclearizes" the peninsula unless it involves getting the U.S. forces, with their nuclear guarantee, off the peninsula.

The only diplomatic triumph here belongs to Kim Jong Il, in a victory only the creators of "South Park" and the puppet movie "Team America" (in which Kim "starred") can truly appreciate.

Bottom line: North Korea was just punted to the next administration.