North Korean Mystery

By Jim Hoagland
Washington Post

Two big questions hang over the new agreement to contain North Korea's nuclear weapons program at its current level -- whatever that level is.

Why has a secretive government addicted to power politics and flexing its military muscles abruptly turned to negotiations and peaceful compromise?

And why is North Korea doing the same?

The Bush administration, of course, cannot match Kim Jong Il's regime in paranoia, bellicosity and information control, although this White House seems at times to have been tempted to try. Other countries know next to nothing about Pyongyang's motivations, intentions or even its ability to carry out any agreement it makes.

This deepens the Washington end of this great strategic mystery: Why is President Bush accepting the promises of a regime he has regularly excoriated -- at a time when officials in his administration make a credible case that North Korea has just been caught helping Syria with nuclear technology?

North Korea's desperation as its economy implodes and its people starve is clearly part of the answer. Pyongyang's plight has helped U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill get an agreement that he believes can be verified and enforced. Timing is also everything for Bush, who is reaching for diplomatic successes before his presidency ends.

There are months of quibbling ahead over the differences between "disabling" and "dismantling" North Korea's plutonium production facilities and other points in the agreement. But Hill appears to have pulled the hermit nation of North Korea into an international process that carefully calibrates risks and rewards on both sides.

(Continued here.)