North Korea deal a failure?

Back in April, amid speculation that Vice President Dick Cheney had lost influence within the Bush administration, I wrote of the North Korea deal: Cheney, like Richard Perle and John Bolton, thinks the North Korea deal will ultimately fail. If and when it does, he'll be vindicated. That's why he let it go through. Well, ...

By Blake Hounshell

May 18, 2007, 2:33 PM

Back in April, amid speculation that Vice President Dick Cheney had lost influence within the Bush administration, I wrote of the North Korea deal:

Cheney, like Richard Perle and John Bolton, thinks the North Korea deal will ultimately fail. If and when it does, he'll be vindicated. That's why he let it go through.

Well, here comes former Ambassador to the U.N. Bolton with a big, fat, "I told you so" column in today's Wall Street Journal. Writing a day after a historic train ride between the two Koreas, Bolton crows:

Over a month has passed since sweetness and light were due to break out on the Korean Peninsula. On Feb. 13, the Six-Party Talks in Beijing ratified a bilateral agreement between the U.S. and North Korea, providing for Pyongyang to give up its nuclear programs. The first step, 60 days after ratification, was to be that North Korea "will shut down and seal for the purpose of eventual abandonment" the Yongbyon nuclear facility, and readmit inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Other steps were to follow, but the first move was unequivocally to be made by Pyongyang. The 60 days came and went, and indeed, another 35 days have come and gone. No IAEA inspectors have been readmitted, and not even Pyongyang claims that it has "shut down" Yongbyon.

I'm not ready to declare the deal a failure just yet. But you can expect Cheney to do so, and to use the situation to his advantage on other fronts—such as Iran, where he's been losing the policy fight to the State Department of late. (Witness the upcoming bilateral talks on Iraq between the United States and Iran.) Bolton hints at next steps in his piece:

How these issues play out will have ramifications far beyond North Korea, particularly for Iran.

Indeed they will. Cheney has hinted darkly that the United States may have to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, if only because Israel will do so on its own. Incidentally, 71 percent of Israelis "believe that the United States should launch a military attack on Iran if diplomatic efforts fail to halt Tehran's nuclear program." Military action is not necessarily on the table—few in Washington think that, at least for now. We might just see a more confrontational approach to Tehran, tighter sanctions, less willingness to offer incentives, etc. The point is, if you think the hawks have completely lost this argument, think again. Of course, if U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill manages to get the North Korea deal back on track, Iran will then be State's game to lose.