Word: pyongyang
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...could always get an agreement if it gave away enough. Main points: rewarding North Korea for giving up its nuclear program sets a bad precedent if, say, Iran should some day announce it is building atom bombs. And at any time during the next 10 years or so, the Pyongyang regime could break the agreement and resume building a nuclear arsenal. Clinton noted that North Korea would then lose all future benefits in oil and reactor-building money. A more conclusive defense: since the U.S. discovered it could not get international support for economic sanctions against Pyongyang, there have been...
...rewarding North Korea's bad behavior? Yes. Does buying off Pyongyang's nuclear-weapons program set a bad precedent? Yes. So Bill Clinton sold out, right? Wrong. The deal is smart and tough, a triumph of patient and creative diplomacy...
Left unchecked, Pyongyang would surely expand its bomb-grade plutonium stocks and its arsenal of nukes, which may already include one or two atomic devices. That could spawn a regional arms race and, worse still, a proliferation nightmare. "The real threat, if the North is allowed to get more nuclear-weapons material, would be their selling it, not using it," says Representative Gary Ackerman, who chairs the House Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific. "Their economy is virtually nonexistent. They'll do anything for money, which is why they're the largest exporter of Scud missiles. If they...
...Administration's deal is smart because it directly addresses that possibility by focusing on the North's future capability first. It's important to know about Pyongyang's existing nuclear capacity, but seeking to resolve that question now would have been a deal breaker. The agreement is smarter still because if Clinton had managed to induce the North to abide only by the terms of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Pyongyang could continue to reprocess plutonium so long as it promised not to use the fuel to build weapons. "But that assumes the International Atomic Energy Agency could guarantee that...
...deal is tough because it incorporates Ronald Reagan's injunction to "trust but verify." The substitute technology the North covets -- the light-water reactors they want for energy generation -- won't be delivered until Pyongyang's compliance has been proved...