Has President Clinton started to prepare the American people for the possibility that the United States will fight a major war with North Korea over that country's drive to become a nuclear power?
It certainly sounded as if he was doing that in deeply pessimistic remarks Dec. 8.Speaking of the fruitless talks with Pyongyang over its refusal to allow full inspection of its nuclear facilities, the president said:
"I hope we are not headed toward a full-blown crisis. I hope we can avoid one, but I am not positive that we can. I am confident that if any kind of conflict should come, we could do what we need to do."
The CIA has long suspected that North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung was trying to build nuclear bombs at Yongbyon, about 60 miles north of Pyongyang, the capital. The suspicion deepened in April, when the regime stopped letting international inspectors visit Yongbyon.
Despite Pyongyang's denials, common sense indicates it is trying to build bombs. Why else would an impoverished state construct an expensive reprocessing plant to separate plutonium from spent reactor fuel? And why bar inspections if there is nothing to hide?
In an effort to keep the North in the no-bombs treaty, Clinton has offered Kim several inducements. He is willing to cancel annual U.S. military exercises with South Korea, to establish full diplomatic relations, to provide economic aid and to build commercial nuclear reactors for the energy-short country.
In reply, Pyongyang has offered to let the IAEA visit some, but not the most important, nuclear sites. Washington says this is utterly inadequate, and if this is Kim's last word, it is prepared to ask the U.N. Security Council to impose economic sanctions.
For its part, the regime has warned that such pressure could cause it to go to war. The threat is not taken lightly. Kim has massed the bulk of his 1.1 million-man armed forces within 60 miles of the South Korean border. His artillery has Seoul, the capital, in range.
Visiting Seoul in July, Clinton said: "Our commitment to Korea's security remains undiminished. The Korean Peninsula remains a vital American interest."
Clinton has thus placed U.S. policy on autopilot: If Kim attacks, the 36,000 American troops in South Korea will be thrown into the battle and reinforced until they and the South's 633,000 soldiers can hurl back the invaders.
When the megalomaniacal Kim last invaded the South in 1950, the United States fought a three-year war that cost it 142,000 casualties. How many men are we prepared to lose again? Cannot the South, with twice the population and 12 times the economy of the North, handle its own defense?
Clinton owes the country answers to those and other questions.