Humorous or ironic?
Which is the better description of President Bush's nuclear-weapons deal with North Korea as the 46th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis draws near?
Guess there's nothing funny about nuclear annihilation.
Yet, one can't help thinking of then-Secretary of State Dean Rusk's famous remark after Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev backed down and agreed to remove Russian missiles from Cuba in October 1962: "We're eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked."
Did North Korea leader Kim Jong Il blink last week in finally turning over documents providing some insight into his nation's nuclear-weapons program?
Or was it Bush, who on receiving the late and incomplete information, announced that North Korea had passed the test to be dropped from the "axis of evil" that also once included Iraq? That leaves Iran as the last member of the original trio.
Certainly, to have North Korea volunteer any details of its efforts to develop fissile material is progress for which Bush and all six nations involved in talks leading to this step should be applauded.
Further congratulate Bush on letting his past disdain for diplomacy subside in letting the State Department talk to North Korea.
But keep the back-patting to a minimum, please.
After all, Bush spent the bulk of the past seven years playing cowboy, refusing to talk to North Korea and giving Kim an excuse -- as if he needed one -- to ignore a no-nukes agreement made with the Clinton administration in 1994.
In some respects, the steps North Korea is making now merely bring us back to the situation as it was 14 years ago. Except it's worse, because North Korea by its own admission now has enough material on hand to make six bombs. And only it knows how many bombs it may have already made.
Also missing from the new information that North Korea has confessed to be forgiven its past sins is any clarification of whether it has conducted a separate, clandestine uranium-enrichment program.
Nor did North Korea answer questions concerning allegations that it helped Syria build an alleged nuclear facility that Israeli warplanes destroyed last September.
Bush notes that his decision to take North Korea off the list of terrorist-supporting nations does not remove other world economic sanctions that can still be applied to force Kim to further cooperate.
Bush's decision, though, has raised the ire of conservatives who preferred his hard-line stance. "Shameful" and "an embarrassment" is how former United Nations ambassador John Bolton described the deal. Liberals are also disappointed that the president required no human rights concessions from the despotic Kim, notorious for his death camps and starving his own people. Japan had wanted Kim to account for Japanese citizens abducted and taken to North Korea in the 1970s and '80s.
Put those items on the list of leftovers for the next president. It will be his responsibility if -- or in North Korea's case -- when it balks at allowing inspectors to verify it's not making more nukes.
-- The Philadelphia Inquirer
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