What’s Kim Il Sung’s Kim Jong Il’s game?

I’m typing this in Princeton, NJ, as I’m giving a talk here today — so there will not be much blogging for the next 24 hours. Talk amongst yourselves. Here’s a topic for discussion — why has North Korea decided now is the time to publicly announce that they have nuclear weapons and suspend participation in six-nation non-proliferation talks? Is it because Kim feels he can widen the diplomatic wedge between the United States and the other members of the talks (Japan, South Korea, China, Russia) — or is it that Kim fears his regime is tottering on the abyss and the only way he can stay in power is to gin up a new international crisis? These are not mutually exclusive reasons, of course — but which one is the primary cause? Be sure to check out NK Zone for more blogging on the Hermit Kingdom. Also worth reading: In Foreign Affairs, Mitchell Reiss and Robert Gallucci rebut Selig Harrison’s claim that North Korea doesn’t really have a uranium enrichment program (link via Josh Marshall). UPDATE: Oh, man did that first header date me — I meant the current leader of the DPRK, Kim Jong il — not his father, Kim Il Sung, who died in 1994. Apologies to all for the error. ANOTHER UPDATE: Follow-up post here. Over at NRO, S.T. Karnick offers the following speculation on Kim’s motives:

If there is a calculation by which North Korea’s action makes sense, the law of Occam’s Razor suggests we should apply it. I believe there is such a possibility. It is unlikely mere coincidence that North Korea made this announcement and pulled out of talks just a few days after the elections in Iraq. In fact, it seems quite plausible that the Kim regime saw the recent comments by Secretary of State Rice as a warning that the United States was going to come after North Korea, and sooner than anyone might think. The statement by the North Korean foreign ministry said Pyongyang has “manufactured nukes for self-defense to cope with the Bush administration’s undisguised policy to isolate and stifle” the nation. Thursday’s New York Times reported that Pyongyang’s statement “zeroed in on Dr. Rice’s testimony last month in her Senate confirmation hearings, where she lumped North Korea with five other dictatorships, calling them ‘outposts of tyranny.'” It seems plausible, then, that Pyongyang came to the conclusion that the United States and a coalition of other nations was about to do something that would ultimately lead to the fall of the Kim regime and a reunification of Korea on terms determined entirely by South Korea and its powerful allies. Today’s statement, then, was Pyongyang’s way of forestalling such action by raising the stakes radically, in suggesting that any U.S. move to impose its will on North Korea would lead to the use, however inefficient and elementary, of nuclear weapons by Pyongyang.

I think that’s a major stretch. As CNN points out today, there have been ample rhetorical opportunities as of late for the administration to target North Korea — and they haven’t used them:

In his inaugural address on January 20, U.S. President George W. Bush did not mention North Korea by name, and he only briefly mentioned the country in his February 2 State of the Union address, saying Washington was “working closely with governments in Asia to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions.” Bush’s tone was in stark contrast to his State of the Union address three years before, when he branded North Korea part of an “axis of evil” with Iran and Iraq. The new, more restrained approach raised hopes for a positive response from North Korea. Bush and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun agreed to push for an early resumption of the six-nation talks.

No, Rice’s testimony was a useful rhetorical hook for North Korea’s actions, and not the cause. In the International Herald-Tribune, there is more speculation about this being an example of internal DPRK strife:

[S]ome analysts suggested that North Korea’s retreat from the peace process may simply be a reflection of political confusion in Pyongyang. “I wonder if this is an inability to come back to the table, resulting from divisions in the North Korean leadership over reaching a deal,” said Peter Beck, who heads the Seoul office of the International Crisis Group.

Developing….