President Bush has reiterated his commitment to diplomacy as
the instrument to use in the days ahead. And the United States
made strides in the critical two days after the policy of
sanctions was announced. The Soviet Union and China were slow to
come around, and China is still problematic, but some sort of
blockade on naval traffic is on its way, and diplomacy is geared
up for the challenge.
There is no way, however, in which Mr. Bush can undo the
sentiment he expressed to Bob Woodward four years ago: "I loathe
Kim Jong Il. I've got a visceral reaction to this guy, because he
is starving his people. And I have seen intelligence of these
prison camps -- they are huge -- that he uses to break up
families and to torture people. It appalls me."
Such sentiments don't do much to enhance diplomacy. Inevitably
they remind us, by contrast, of the oleaginous references to
Stalin and Hitler and Mao Tse-tung by yesterday's diplomats on
the make. But even if Mr. Bush reproduced his words to Woodward
on a calling card to distribute among diplomats bound for
Pyongyang, this would surely not affect the man who sees himself
as the mental pillar and the eternal sun to the Korean
people.
The proposed sanctions could hypothetically immobilize Kim.
You can reduce the need for food by depriving incremental
millions of it, but a million-man army needs fuel. Unfortunately,
there isn't any way to seal the border to the north, sufficiently
to block extra fuel from passing through the long frontier North
Korea shares with China. China has a special consideration here.
The pressure of masses of North Koreans who want food and
stability creates a huge problem, so much so that the Chinese
worry more about instability in the Korean peninsula than about
nuclear bombs dispatched from Pyongyang.
The diplomatic ideal, where China is concerned, is to mount
sufficient pressure to influence Kim's behavior, but not so much
as to threaten his hegemony. The final formulation of Beijing's
collaboration will be critical, and the challenge in Washington
is to egg it on to ensure that Dear Leader will recognize that he
has gone one step too far.