WASHINGTON — What was Kim Jong Il thinking?
As North Korea-watchers in Washington and Seoul on Thursday digested the bombshell admission that Pyongyang has a secret nuclear weapons program, speculation centered on what motivated the secretive, Stalinist North Korean leader to fess up. At the same time, they wondered whether the Bush administration can justify negotiating with North Korea while threatening to invade a similar nuclear aspirant, Iraq.
Analysts agreed that only Kim himself could have made the snap decision to admit to visiting U.S. diplomats two weeks ago that the evidence they presented showing North Korea had been working for more than two years on a uranium-based nuclear weapons program was accurate.
Some speculated that the regime's unapologetic confirmation that North Korea has "a nuclear weapons program and more" was motivated by the fear that the Bush administration, once it finishes a possible invasion of Iraq, intends to turn its wrath on another nation that President Bush has identified as a member of an "axis of evil": North Korea.
"Don't disregard North Korea's paranoia and its fear of a U.S. attack," cautioned L. Gordon Flake, a North Korea expert and head of the Mansfield Center for Pacific Affairs in Washington. "The more the U.S. displays its capacity to and willingness to extend its reach -- and what some people see as violate the sovereignty of other countries -- the more frightened North Korea becomes."
Larry Niksch, an Asia specialist with the Congressional Research Service, said: "The message is ... we have powerful weapons, more powerful than Iraq, and if you're thinking about coming after us for your next target after Iraq, you better think twice, because we can hit back harder than the Iraqis can."
The question for U.S. policymakers is how to appear to have a consistent policy toward both "proliferators," while taking into account the fact that the two nations pose dramatically different security challenges.
The fundamental difference is that North Korea once threatened to turn Seoul into "a sea of fire" if attacked, and the U.S. has long judged that Pyongyang is capable of doing so.
North Korea has a standing army of 1.2 million, about 70% of which is forward-deployed within 60 miles of the demilitarized zone, and about 10,000 artillery pieces dug into hardened positions within easy range of the South Korean capital.
