At 9:36 p.m. EDT on Sunday evening, North Korea detonated a nuclear bomb, setting off a 4.2 magnitude artificial earthquake and sending political tremors around the world. More terrifying than the Iraq debacle and more pressing than the House scandal, North Korea’s final confirmation of its possession of the bomb stands as the most miserable failure of the Bush administration. In a quick press conference, George W. Bush ’64 said, “The proclaimed actions taken by North Korea are unacceptable,” and that the “claim itself constitutes a threat to international peace and security.” Unfortunately, Mr. Bush did not express regret for his own administration’s decisions that have brought a new member into the nuclear club. In the 2004 U.S. Presidential debates, both candidates claimed that nuclear proliferation was their pick as the “single most serious threat to the United States.” However, on the issue of North Korea, Senator John Kerry stated that bilateral talks would be crucial to preventing the gain and use of nuclear weapons. Mr. Bush disagreed, arguing that multilateral talks would be more effective and that bilateral talks would somehow play into Kim Jong Il’s hands. Multilateral talks proved to be alarmingly ineffective, and bilateral talks never occurred during Bush’s tenure. This lack of meaningful communication became the primary rationale of Kim Jong Il in his successful attempt to gain a bomb. Kim Jong Il, whom the United States regards as the driving force behind North Korea’s nuclear program, has led the country since the death of his father, Kim Il Sung, in 1994. He has consistently claimed that he desires bilateral talks with and aid from the United States, and recent nuclear developments have come after the loss of one-on-one negotiations with the U.S. During the Clinton presidency, North Korea gained the basic materials to construct a uranium bomb but not a much more explosive plutonium bomb. Mr. Bush implemented a more restrictive policy on entry to office and cut all ties to North Korea, including bilateral talks. This resulted in North Korea’s manufacture of ten bombs’ worth of refined plutonium in the past four years. In his State of the Union address in January 2002, Bush dubbed North Korea as part of an “Axis of Evil,” and a year later, North Korea withdrew from the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty- another step toward Sunday’s explosion. Then came Iraq and its enormous tie-up of American military resources, media attention and popular interest. The world went along with the U.S., so distracted by the quagmire in the Middle East that it failed to notice an unhinged North Korea desperately crying for attention. This week, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice continued to argue against the efficacy of bilateral talks, seriously underestimating the “leverage” of America in international relations. While North Korea and its unbalanced Kim Jong Il are directly culpable for Sunday’s terrifying test of a nuclear bomb, George W. Bush and his administration were capable of preventing it. Unfortunately, the lure of other targets and interests has been too great, and the nuclear club now has a ninth member. America has now been forced to address the problem of North Korea, and the U.S. should immediately engage in bilateral disarmament talks. If not, the next bomb from Pyongyang may not be a test.
