Well, that didn't take long. Not even a month after the much-heralded accord in which North Korea agreed, among other things, to halt long-range missile testing, Pyongyang announced its intention to launch a satellite — with a long-range missile.
This is, if nothing else, clever. The United States has put a lot of eggs into the basket of a denuclearization process and of improved relations supposedly inaugurated by the February nuclear deal. But if Washington stands by its position that this proposed satellite launch — a transparent ploy to test powerful rocket technology — would be a deal breaker, we'll be right back at square one.
Pyongyang has us right where it wants us, in a sense, which shows again the bankruptcy of a policy designed to bargain for nuclear and missile concessions that the North is never going to provide. The nuclear agreement was never likely to get Pyongyang to halt nuclear or missile research. But it could offer a gateway to a new strategy, one that transfers our main emphasis to using dramatic economic and social changes underway in the North to promote long-term U.S. and allied interests.
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