When tough talk doesn't work
Pyongyang's announcement that it had conducted an atomic test blew a nuclear-sized hole in the foreign policy of US President George W. Bush. It was sad to see a humbled Mr Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and UN ambassador John Bolton huffing and puffing that North Korea must be made to pay for its defiance with 'serious repercussions'.
But how? The world has responded with condemnation and sanctions, but Pyongyang has huffed and puffed right back. The dangerous truth is that North Korea is a pariah state, whose people live in grinding poverty and fear - but it has thumbed its snotty nose at the world's megapower, the United Nations and everybody else.
This messy situation is likely to get messier, especially if Beijing, Washington, Seoul and Tokyo cannot agree on a common and workable set of sticks and carrots to get North Korea to rejoin the world community.
The experience of sanctions is that they don't work. The stark truth is that there are only two options - changing either the regime or its leader, Kim Jong-il. China, South Korea and Russia are not prepared to tolerate a forced regime change - and they are almost certainly right. In his wildest dreams, Mr Bush may imagine Mr Kim falling quickly to a military strike. But that would leave an impoverished economy and a political vacuum to fill.
It is more likely that North Korea would resist. And even if it did not deploy its flawed nuclear weapons, a terrible fallout would spread across the Korean Peninsula and extend to China and Japan. The United States would also suffer, not least by further humiliation as Washington's promises to punish Pyongyang were shown to be empty rhetoric.
For millions in Asia, the spread of death and violence would make the experience in Iraq look like a squabble over sandwiches at a Sunday summer picnic.
Is Kim-Jong-il-change a possibility? This is probably the best prospect, even though it may seem remote. Mr Kim has shown that he is dangerous. But though he may be prepared to risk the world to save his own skin, there is no evidence to suggest that he is stupid. A wiser Washington would have been working with China - before North Korea's nuclear test - on a set of measures to see that Pyongyang behaved sensibly. A wiser Beijing would have realised that a nuclear test by a defiant North Korea is a big risk to China's own stability and all that its economic reforms have achieved.
Mr Bush seems to have forgotten the wise words of Winston Churchill, that 'jaw, jaw is better than war, war'. Washington's refusal to give Mr Kim face through bilateral talks undoubtedly made him more determined to show he could not be bullied.
The wise policy would be to squeeze Mr Kim tightly with sanctions that will bite. At the same time, he would be offered juicy carrots that would save his face and neck while offering him the prospect of trade and aid - if he stops behaving like a hooligan.
The irony, especially after Iraq, is that few people can want to see the downfall of Mr Kim or the North Korean regime. Let him clean up his own mess and drag the nuclear clock back from one minute to midnight.
It is in everyone's interest to get beyond a nuclear stand-off, beyond military threats. We must move to where North Korea can be brought in to enjoy the fruits of economic growth that have lifted the rest of the region from the ashes of war and poverty.
After that, Washington should ponder how to deal with the nine-member mafia of nuclear-armed nations, some of them highly unpredictable. It is time to revisit the negotiations for the abolition of all weapons of mass destruction.
Kevin Rafferty is a political commentator
