So suddenly it's let's make a deal time on the Korean peninsula:

President Bush has authorized a team of American negotiators to offer North Korea, in talks in Beijing on Thursday, a new but highly conditional set of incentives to give up its nuclear weapons programs the way Libya did late last year, according to senior administration officials.

Under the plan, outlined by American officials on Tuesday evening, in response to pressure from China and American allies in Asia, the aid would begin flowing immediately after a commitment by Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader, to dismantle his plutonium and uranium weapons programs. In return, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea would immediately begin sending tens of thousands of tons of heavy fuel oil every month, and Washington would offer a "provisional'' guarantee not to invade the country or seek to topple Mr. Kim's government.

The Poor Man explains all the many, many ways this differs from the Clinton policy of appeasement and surrender:

North Korea has perhaps a dozen warheads at this point, and, because their deterrance is essentially impregnable, we're paying more than we ever would have had we made this deal three years ago, or had the Congress allowed the country to honor the Clinton deal (further proof that, however much one tries to admire John McCain, one keeps butting up against the fact that he's insane). We then pray long and hard that the regime never, ever falls, because then it's going to be a free-for-all.

Imagine that: It's only taken the administration three years to accept the fact that there are no good options when it comes to dealing with Dear Leader (North Korea's, not ours) - and bribery may be the best of the bunch.

OK, the Bushies say, so we wasted months of precious time on our endless internal ideology wars. But maybe we can get the Chinese to bail us out!

Or maybe not:

Ambassador Gallucci [the man who handled the Clinton administration's negotiations with the Hermit Kingdom] believes that only high level direct talks can succeed and while China's support is important, he criticises the Bush team for effectively-sub contracting Washington's North Korea policy to Beijing.

Such an approach, he says, fails to take into account the very different strategic and regional interests of China and the US.

So it seems Bush has moved to the left of Clinton when it comes to dealing with China (you know, the guys who shot down our spy plane and returned it to us in little boxes?) And yet it wasn't really so long ago that the neocons were telling anyone who would listen that Bush understood the Chinese were our strategic competitors, not our strategic partners.

But wait, I forgot: We're all realists now.

All I can say is, thank GOD we got the grown ups back in charge before the Democrats completely mucked up U.S. foreign policy.

*A very spicy Korean version of sauerkraut.

They [capitalists] will furnish credits which will serve us for the support of the Communist Party in their countries and, by supplying us materials and technical equipment which we lack, will restore our military industry necessary for our future attacks against our suppliers. To put it in other words, they will work on the preparation of their own suicide.

Vladimir Ilich Lenin
As reported in Novyi Zhurnal
September 1961

---

At Least 7 Nations Tied To Pakistani Nuclear Ring

VIENNA, Feb. 7 -- The rapidly expanding probe into a Pakistani-led nuclear trafficking network extended to at least seven nations Saturday as investigators said they had traced businesses from Africa, Asia and Europe to the smuggling ring controlled by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Three days after Khan confessed on television to selling his country's nuclear secrets, Western diplomats and intelligence officials said they were just beginning to understand the scale of the network, a global enterprise that supplied nuclear technology and parts to Libya, Iran, North Korea and possibly others.

"Dr. Khan was not working alone. Dr. Khan was part of a process," said Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna-based U.N. agency that is conducting the probe along with U.S. and other Western intelligence agencies. "There were items that were manufactured in other countries. There were items that were assembled in a different country."