For most Europeans, President Bush’s second-term North Korea policy is a welcome relief from his earlier unilateralist cowboy-ism. Recent photos of the Yongbyon reactor’s cooling tower collapsing are soothing evidence that Washington’s foreign-policy establishment has reasserted itself. Can direct U.S. negotiations with Iran be far behind?

In fact, what is collapsing is not the North’s nuclear program, but President Bush’s foreign policy.

North Korea has violated every significant agreement ever reached with the United States, and all indications are that the North is again following its traditional game plan. It is quite adept at pledging to give up its nuclear program, having done so several times in the past 15 years. Not once, however, has it actually taken decisive steps to do so. Indeed, quite the opposite ...

For North Korea, diplomacy is not intended to solve common problems, but a very effective way to string along guileless Westerners, thus buying more valuable time to achieve its proliferation objectives.

 aei.org