DPRK Making Iraq Look Like a Democracy?

The following is as relevant today as it was in 2003 when it was first written.

In their book Nuclear North Korea A Debate on Engagement Strategy, Victor D. Cha and David C. Kang wrote that the stakes for U.S. policy towards North Korea are far too high to base a public policy debate on pundits and op-ed contributors.

After all, debates in the U.S., according to the two authors, are informed "more by partisan recriminations about who screwed up the policy than by North Korean behavior."

Quoting a former commander of the U.S. forces in Korea General Gary Luck, the book noted that a sober but succinct estimate if things go bad will amount to "one million and one trillion." That is, the costs of going to war over North Korea's nuclear program would work out to one million casualties and one trillion dollars in estimated industrial damage and lost business.

The two authors said what they tried to do was to show that North Korea is complex but not complicated - i.e. its actions and behavior - no matter how deplorable - are comprehensible.

"And because they are understandable (as opposed to irrational), there is a basis for diplomacy," they wrote.

But then it does not help that some do not want diplomacy with one of the world's most secretive regime.

According to Nicholas Kristof who was also quoted in the book: "[The DPRK regime] is about as unpalatable a diplomatic partner as one can imagine, making Iraq look like a democracy."

But really, who cares if one's diplomatic partner is "palatable" or not (you are not carving him up for dinner, are you?). When there's work to be done, there's work to be done.