North Korea doesn't see nuclear weapons as a bargaining chip to throw on the table to get aid. North Korea sees nuclear weapons as a threat to extort aid and make sure it keeps coming. Nukes are that important to them:
A top North Korean decision-making body issued a pointed warning Sunday, saying that nuclear weapons are "the nation's life" and will not be traded even for "billions of dollars."
Remember, they've had plenty of opportunities to trade their nukes for aid. We thought we made that deal with the Agreed Framework in the mid-1990s. But George W. Bush called them on their cheating (which our left hated him for doing--better to pretend success, I guess).
Given that North Korea loudly proclaims that they need nukes to prevent our long-feared invasion (even as we reduce troop strength in North Korea), why does anyone think they'd actually agree to get rid of their nukes? What guarantee could we offer the nutballs in Pyongyang that would convince them that we aren't lying to them and saying what we need to in order to lull them into complacency so we can conquer that paradise on Earth?
After all, didn't President Obama just remove the regime of Khadaffi even after Libya abandoned their nuclear weapons program during the Bush 43 administration?
Face it, we keep thinking that North Korea wants to trade nukes for money. But North Korea won't trust us to keep the goodies flowing after North Korea abandons nuclear weapons. Besides, I doubt we could get verification means rigorous enough to be sure North Korea really did give up their nukes.
I'm fine talking to North Korea. I'm even okay with dribbling out a tiny bit of aid if it keeps the North Koreans hoping to get enough to matter. Keeping North Korea from rolling the dice on a war is a good idea. The price of winning would likely be high.
But let's never forget that the purpose of the talks is to string along the North Koreans until they collapse. "Talk, talk. Die, die," I say.
The only problem is that talking while we push North Korea to finally die counts on North Korea not having nuclear weapons. Waging a war and paying the price for defeating non-nuclear North Korea then becomes a relative bargain compared to the price of waiting for North Korea to go nuclear before fighting them.
