Two years and counting — still waiting for a Bush policy on North Korea

The Bush administration has argued, with limited success, that dealing with North Korea is different from dealing with Iraq. OK, giving the president the benefit of the doubt for a moment, different crises require different approaches. Yet, even acknowledging the complex geo-political distinctions, it’s getting more and more difficult to see the coherence on Bush’s policy towards the Korean Peninsula.

Here’s what we know: Bush considers North Korea part of an “axis of evil.” Kim Jung Il, a dangerous madman who effectively runs his country as a giant prison, has lied about his weapons program and has secretly been developing a nuclear weapons reactor. United Nations inspectors, who had been monitoring North Korea throughout the 1990s, were summarily thrown out of the country once it was discovered that officials were lying about the nukes. The CIA, meanwhile, believes North Korea could strike against the mainland United States with its existing missiles, not to mention the 40,000 American soldiers stationed in South Korea.

In the wake of these revelations, the White House has sworn off any and all military options, insisting that diplomacy can resolve the crisis. First it said it would work to isolate North Korea in the international community Then, realizing that North Korea has been about as isolated as a country can be for decades, the administration announced it would not open discussions with North Korean officials, for fear of “rewarding” bad behavior. Shortly thereafter, the White House changed its mind and said it would open discussions, but it would not negotiate. Shifting gears again, the administration said it might negotiate, but it would never compromise.

This is a comedy of errors. The Bush administration has no policy on North Korea. None. It’s all Iraq, all the time.

So it probably shouldn’t have been shocking on Monday that North Korea conducted its first missile launch test in three years and the administration, well, didn’t seem to care.

“Officials in Washington with access to American intelligence said they were not alarmed by the launching today,” the New York Times reported.

Keep in mind, the missile test coincides nicely with the election of South Korea’s new leader, Roh Moo Hyun, and occurred on the same day as Secretary of State Colin Powell’s trip to China to begin multilateral discussions about how to deal with the crisis.

It leads Carpetbagger to believe The Onion, which parodied North Korea’s desperate desire to get any kind of attention from the U.S., was on to something.

More importantly, it leads me to believe that any country that was interested in developing a nuclear weapons program will probably get to work promptly, because this administration is proudly telling the world that it’s only interest is Iraq.

For more on Bush’s handling, or in this case mishandling, of the North Korea crisis, Carpetbagger strongly recommends every word written on the topic by Joshua Micah Marshall at Talking Points Memo. He’s offered better analysis than anyone.