Lawyers say hard cases make for bad law. That's because the hard cases are
exceptions, and making a general rule based on the exception is bound to
create problems. North Korea is one of those exceptionally hard cases.
Kim Jong Il would seem unrealistic even as a comic-book villain. In a world
full of strange and exotic cultures, North Korea's neo-Stalinist experiment
ranks as otherworldly. Try to imagine what a North Korea exhibit at Epcot
Center would display: emaciated, out-of-work actors (no shortage there)
eating fake tree bark while guarding a giant concentration camp where
prisoners are forced to worship a guy who should be wearing a tinfoil hat at
the local library. Don't forget to try the sawdust kimchi!
Proof that North Korea is a hard case can be found in the fact that the
Democrats and Republicans have switched sides. Ordinarily multilateralist
Democrats are now unalloyed champions of unilateralism, in the form of
face-to-face negotiations with North Korea, while President Bush - that
infamous go-it-alone "cowboy" - has embraced international teamwork. Both
approaches are flawed for a simple reason: North Korea wants a nuclear
weapon because it wants a nuclear weapon.
The Jimmy Carter vision holds that North Korea's nukes are coupons to be
redeemed for groceries. But the North Koreans pocketed U.S. concessions
after face-to-face talks in 1994 and continued pursuing nukes because ...
they wanted nukes. Bush's strategy has been, first, to declare that advances
in North Korea's nuclear program are "unacceptable" and then do nothing, and
second, to insist that the U.S. can't accomplish anything because our
"partners" won't cooperate.
The North Korea dilemma - much like the threat of Islamic fanaticism - is
Aesopian. The frog in Aesop's fable did not wish to be stung by the
scorpion. The scorpion's position? Wishing's got nothing to do with it.
Americans tend to think - and Europeans consider it gospel - that all
differences can be negotiated. The truth is that only negotiable problems
can be negotiated. Just ask Hamas if everything can be bargained for around
a table. Their one non-negotiable principle is that Israel must cease to
exist. Beyond that, they're open to all sorts of creative proposals.
What's worrisome about the hard case of North Korea is that so many people
see Pyongyang's intransigence as proof that the whole international
community has to work together.