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U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday called North Korea¡¯s Kim Jong-il a ¡°dangerous man,¡± a person who ¡°starves his people¡± and runs ¡°huge concentration camps.¡± He said, ¡°There is concern about his capacity to deliver a nuclear weapon. We don't know if he can or not, but I think it's best, when you're dealing with a tyrant like Kim Jong-il, to assume he can.¡±
That President Bush has fired a direct broadside at Kim Jong-il after seemingly restraining himself for so long bodes ill; the North Korean nuclear dispute is coming to a head. Already on March 16, the North Korean Foreign Ministry said it could not rejoin six-party nuclear disarmament talks as long as America refuses to take back Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's "outpost of tyranny" label, a position the Stalinist country is sticking to. In her own sort of way Rice tried to save Pyongyang¡¯s face, saying there was no reason to apologize because she spoke the truth but noting, at the same time, that North Korea is a sovereign state. It was not enough. Against this background, Bush is once again firing direct hits against Kim Jong-il, perhaps because his administration is no longer counting on any success of the six-party talks.
Still, North Korea is a negotiating partner, however putative. Calling its leader a ¡°dangerous man.¡± a tyrant even - is that the best possible diplomacy? The task is to find out why Bush made the comments today. Perhaps Washington has judged that it is no longer possible to restart dialogue with the North. Perhaps it is launching a verbal offensive to goad the reclusive country back to the negotiating table. Once thing is clear: the U.S. is not retreating in the face of North Korean brinkmanship, nuclear weapons or no nuclear weapons.
Starting his second term, George Bush made the ¡°spread of freedom¡± a core task and said, ¡°The United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors.¡± Combine that with Bush¡¯s comments about Kim Jong-il, and it suggests that the U.S. may have decided that resolving the nuclear standoff and ¡°spreading freedom¡± are tasks that should go hand in hand after all. You can hear the angry roar of waves surging toward the Korean Peninsula. Are we the only ones with our eyes closed?
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