Word: pyongyang
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...this week at Panmunjom "to earnestly discuss utilization of the resources of rivers." For Koreans the tactical use of water has historical as well as practical aspects. In the 7th century, General Ulchi Mundok defeated an invasion of 300,000 Chinese by retreating to the flooding Chongchon River near Pyongyang; the waters helped him virtually to annihilate the Chinese force...
...Perhaps most astonishing of all, even Washington is now straining for another chance to coax Pyongyang into voluntary nuclear self-disarmament. Over the past year, the Bush Administration, once the only actor in the cast committed to pressing North Korea into nonproliferation compliance, has performed a dizzying climb-down. Gone are U.S. demands for the complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement of the North's nuclear programs. American diplomats no longer even talk of North Korea's highly enriched-uranium program, whose public exposure by State Department officials in 2002 triggered the ongoing proliferation drama. Since North Korean officials now insist they...
...pledge economic aid (food, oil) and other benefits (including, perhaps, diplomatic recognition) in return for a provisional North Korean freeze of its plutonium facilities and a readmission of nuclear inspectors. In other words, the Bush Administration was proffering a zero-penalty return to the previous nuclear deals Pyongyang had flagrantly broken-but with additional goodies, and a provisional free pass for any nukes produced since 2002. With this overture, the Bush team embraced the very approach it had once mocked as weak-kneed and "Clintonesque...
...Pyongyang knows a cave-in when it sees one. They brushed aside the "early harvest" proposal as inadequate, demanding still more before they would listen to new denuclearization offers-specifically, the release of $24 million of Pyongyang's funds currently frozen in Macau's Banco Delta Asia on suspicion of North Korean complicity in counterfeiting U.S. currency. Pyongyang's obsession over the past year with repocketing its Macau bag money-a paramount issue on its foreign agenda ever since the accounts were impounded in 2005 by Macau banking authorities under U.S. Treasury scrutiny-is easily explained. Since the North...
...Washington, with State Department officials wheedling Treasury counterparts to let up, just a bit, on their international campaign against counterfeiting and money laundering, so that a charter member of the Axis of Evil can be lured back to the six-party table. The outcome is still uncertain. If Pyongyang does get its frozen millions back, and the past is prologue, Kim will pocket the money, then detonate another nuke at the time and place of his choosing. He understands that the six-party farce provides ideal diplomatic cover for his unobstructed nuclear buildup. What the other players don't seem...