SEOUL -- In his State of the Union address, U.S. President George W. Bush has managed to disappoint South Korea and enrage North Korea at the same time by lumping the latter with the likes of Iraq and Iran. As the president begins a Northeast Asian rain-check sojourn with stops in Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing -- and with Korean issues a high priority in all three capitals -- he is likely to be called to account. Ironically, two of them, Tokyo and Seoul just joined with Washington in a high-profile Honolulu trilateral forum designed to coordinate policy toward North Korea.
A cardinal aspect of U.S. policy is to promote North-South dialogue in tandem with South Korean President Kim Dae Jung's engagement policy. But Kim's credibility is waning fast -- having sacked unification ministers in the past six months deemed both too soft (Lim Dong Won) and too hardline (Hong Soon Young) in dealing with the North. In short, Pyongyang has had it both ways, and this latest bombshell from Bush can do Kim no good.
Moreover, bellicose rhetoric from Washington merely feeds Pyongyang's sense of insecurity and vulnerability while making it impossible for the resumption of North-South dialogue that Kim Dae Jung is banking on to prepare the ground for North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's promised return visit to Seoul before his term expires a year from now.