Nuclear Proliferation: Bush Carterized

On April 16 LFTC posted John Bolton and WSJ articles warning of an imminent cave-in by the Bush administration, as to North Korea.  Alas, Bush has indeed caved.  Bolton's May 8 article (published, in unintended irony, on the 63rd anniversary of V-E Day) notes that the White House has essentially accepted ignoring the North's uranium enrichment program, so long as plutonium program progress is halted.  Here are JB's money paragraphs:

For the Bush administration, however, the lack of new data is an excuse to ignore the entire issue of uranium.

On plutonium, the administration seems content to seek vague statements from the North that "account" for the amount of this fissile material we think it has extracted from its Yongbyon reactor's spent fuel rods over the years. Administration briefings reveal little or no interest in how many plutonium weapons exist; whether there are other plutonium-related facilities hidden in North Korea's vast complex of underground facilities; and what the North's weapons-manufacturing capabilities are.

Proliferation? Perhaps the Bush administration's most wondrous act of magic is to make that problem disappear. The State Department argues that North Korea may have proliferated in the past, but that's all behind us. How do we know? The North Koreans have told us.

Since the reactor it helped Syria build on the Euphrates River was pulverized by the Israeli Air Force last September 6, Pyongyang's efforts at and interest in nuclear proliferation may have ceased. Even if true, that should not give us comfort: It took an act of brute military force to bring this about. One need hardly point out that this tactic is not congruent with the administration's current approach to North Korea's nuclear behavior.

Nor does Foggy Bottom seem concerned about Iran.  Bolton explains why they should be:

Some friendly advice to our intelligence services: Think joint venture. Think asset diversification.

Hypothetically, what if the deal had North Korea getting a third of the plutonium produced by the Euphrates reactor, Iran a third, and Syria a third? The North benefits by maintaining open access to a plutonium supply even if Yongbyon remains frozen. Iran gets experience in reactor technologies immune from IAEA scrutiny. And Syria takes a major step toward undisclosed nuclear capabilities. Win-win-win, as that entrepreneurial proliferator A.Q. Khan might have said.

Worse, to add injury to insult--no, make that, to add imbecility to idiocy--Foggy Bottom is, the WSJ editors warn us, undermining its own verification experts, who are supposed to verify the declarations made by the North.  FB even has injected humor into the most unfunny state of affairs: part of the verification duties may well be assumed by...China.  Yes, that China.  The one with 1.4 billion souls, about to host the Summer Olympics.  The one whose technology help A. Q. Khan's Pakistani program (the Pakistanis use a 1966 Chinese Hiroshima-size warhead design).

Meanwhile, Claudia Rosett flags another Bush administration stinker (also done under Clinton): de-linking human rights and nuclear negotiations.  The Reagan administration knew better.  It is not a coincidence that RR has a more successful policy versus the Soviets, than Bush the Younger is having with North Korea & Iran.  More a detailed study of evading nuclear safeguards, the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center has posted Roberta Wohlstetter's classic study of India's 1974 bomb, "The Buddha Smiles" (1977, 257 pages of double-space type printout).  For its part, Moscow announced sanctions, in accord with UN Security Council resolutions, against Iran.

Mavens Henry Sokolski and Gary Schmitt assess the nuclear abolitionist initiative started by former senior officials, written up on LFTC, and find it wanting as to verification.  They note, too, that the NPT was designed for a world when going weapons-grade was harder to do and easier to detect, and suggest the treaty be updated. Also, they note Iran's risible claim of commercial need, when it is literally floating on  a cheaper energy  source, natural gas.

So thus has the resolute Bush II administration been Carterized, on matters of extreme urgency.  Be afraid.  Be very afraid.