By Jack A. Smith
In recent weeks, a number of Democratic politicians, including some of the party's few remaining liberals, have criticized the Bush administration for its monomaniacal concentration on dominating Iraq when North Korea, they allege, presents a greater danger to the United States.
They express this view because the Pyongyang government recently announced it would resume its nuclear program, but fail to mention that such action is being taken in the face of relentless U.S. efforts to undermine the country's independence, sovereignty, economy and communist political system.
This brief article will posit that it is misleading to suggest that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), the north's formal name, is a threat to America.
North Korea is a proud country of some 21 million people which has been suffering harsh economic conditions in recent years. Despite these difficulties, it continues to stand up to the United States as few other countries would dare to do.
For several recent years a certain rough balance obtained in U.S.-North Korean relations. But when President Bush decided to excoriate the DPRK as part of an "Axis of Evil" -- and thus a probable target in the "war on terrorism" after Iraq -- the DPRK responded by reopening its nuclear power facilities. This was done to back up its demands for negotiations with the U.S., not as a prelude to war.
Bush's provocative characterization coincided with Washington's attempts to subvert the South Korean government's policy of seeking to normalize relations between the northern and southern sectors of the Korean peninsula after nearly 60 years of separation and antagonism. In addition, the U.S. (1) has imposed economic and trade sanctions against the north for decades and recently took steps to renege on a food shipment agreement; (2) maintains a standing army of nearly 40,000 troops just south of the 38th parallel dividing the Korean nation in two and essentially controls the south's sizable armed forces; (3) refuses to hold direct talks with the north to resolve problems, as President Kim Jong Il has repeatedly sought; and (4) will not even agree to a formal peace treaty ending the 1950-53 Korean War, among other manifestly unfriendly acts toward Pyongyang.
We have two reasons for suggesting that it is a serious mistake -- especially for liberals and those who consider themselves in the antiwar camp -- to make the accusation that North Korea is a great danger to the United States.
First, it provides a "liberal" argument to justify the possibility that the right-wing Bush administration may attack the DPRK after it conquers Iraq as part of the quest for world hegemony and resources known as the "war on terrorism." The claim that North Korea is a "great threat" to the United States might serve as George Bush's trigger for another "preemptive" war.
Second, the DRPK is not in fact a threat to the U.S. There is no proof that it possesses nuclear weapons or the delivery systems required to strike North America. And there is certainly no evidence it would ever threaten to attack the U.S. if it did. Technically, over the next few years, it is possible the north could produce a few rudimentary nuclear weapons and, possibly, an adequate delivery system. The north has said it won't do so, but even if it did, such devices would undoubtedly constitute bargaining chips in future negotiations.
The notion that North Korea would produce and sell these small nuclear weapons to foreign terrorists is nonsense. The DPRK is not unaware that it is under 24-hour surveillance by the United States from the sky, sea and land. It is hardly ignorant of the fact that the U.S. possesses the most powerful military machine in world history, including thousands of the most deadly nuclear missiles and bombs, and is prepared to use this power "preemptively," should the White House so decide. The Pentagon's long-range, medium-range, and short-range weapons of mass destruction trained on the DPRK could reduce the entire country to utter rubble in an hour. To produce and deliver a nuclear weapon to a terrorist organization would be the equivalent of committing national suicide, and Pyongyang knows it.
The so-called "threat" from North Korea could be replaced by a significant improvement in U.S.-DPRK relations if Washington adopted measures toward rapprochement such as these:
• Entering negotiations with Pyongyang on the basis of equality, genuinely seeking to resolve mutual problems fairly.
• Eliminating the designation "Axis of Evil" from those countries that the Bush administration has been threatening to harm, including North Korea.
• Ending the trade and economic sanctions that the U.S. imposes. Combined with the loss of its traditional socialist trading partners, a situation compounded by climatic conditions that have caused several serious successive droughts, such sanctions are contributing to the country's severe economic setbacks.
• Eliminating its antipathy to Seoul's "Sunshine" strategy for developing closer relations with Pyongyang.
• Withdrawing U.S. military forces that have been occupying South Korea since 1953 -- a source of major friction between north and south.
• Agreeing to a peace treaty ending the Korean War.
Such measures could transform the volatile Korean peninsula into a strategically situated zone of productivity, progress and peace. -- This article will be published in the next issue of the Mid-Hudson (N.Y.) Activist Newsletter.