SEOUL -- The stage was set for a summit showdown when U.S. President George W. Bush arrived in Seoul last week, and it did not disappoint. At stake was not only the future of Kim Dae Jung's "sunshine policy" of engagement with North Korea -- which is highly dependent on the resumption of talks between the United States and the North -- but also the solidity of the U.S.-South Korean alliance.

While the alliance survived the ordeal intact at the official level, Bush, rather than salvage the sunshine policy, unleashed another State of the Union-sized salvo toward Pyongyang. To be sure, the words were different, but the voice and refrain were the same: "We can't let the world's most dangerous regimes threaten us with the world's most dangerous weapons." The words played directly into the hands of hawks in both Koreas.

In Seoul, Bush faced a twofold task; repairing the breach with the South and laying the groundwork for a resumption of dialogue with the North. The problem is that the two tracks intersect, and the two governments have different takes on how to effectively engage the North. Pledging not to invade North Korea is a nonissue, as the armistice precludes it and realpolitik prevents it. Pledging to engage North Korea, on the other hand, went virtually unaddressed.

And while Bush noted that stability on the Peninsula is built on military might, he sounded as if he liked it that way, even while holding out a vision of a reconciled Peninsula in which peace and cooperation would prevail. Bush offered no road map on how to replace today's cruel reality of barbed wire and fear with a peaceful tomorrow.

At present, a clear majority of South Koreans are opposed to the hardline policies of the Bush administration, fearful that the "war on terrorism" may extend to the Peninsula. At the same time, South Korea is deeply divided politically, probably more so than at any time since the end of military rule a decade ago. The division has less to do with whether to engage the North, but rather with how to do so effectively via a two-way street.

For Koreans, their country is more than a military outpost. The danger, however, is the perception bordering on fact that the U.S., not the South Korean government, is driving the terms of an engagement policy. As in the past, when foreigners were perceived to be in charge, the result is antiforeign sentiment -- as evidenced last week by anti-U.S. demonstrations in Seoul.

And because Kim Dae Jung's brilliant diplomacy has been offset by political ineptness on the home front, including the repeated sacking of key officials willy-nilly, it will fall to the next government to fashion a consensus that gives due weight to both the goal of reconciliation and the need for stability in the U.S.-South Korean alliance.

Although it lacked the drama of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan's unforgettable challenge to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this (Berlin) wall," the appearance of Kim and Bush at Dorasan Station in the Demilitarized Zone was the symbolic zenith of the trip, played out in a theater of the absurd -- a station without passengers and a railroad going nowhere.

The symbolism could not have been lost on the absent North Korean leader: Will Kim Jong Il take up the challenge to finish the northern portion of the railroad, open the whole Peninsula to the rest of the world and then surprise us by riding the rails all the way to Seoul?

Can Bush's "axis of evil" be compared to Reagan's "evil empire"? Such a comparison will not sit well with Pyongyang, given the Soviet Union's collapse. It was good theater but bad diplomacy to separate the North Korean regime from its people (which Pyongyang perceives as one) by railing against the former and embracing the latter, or to label North Korea a prison in calling upon Kim Jong Il to "let his people go."

Before Bush took office, the Clinton administration had come close to clinching a deal that included economic assistance in exchange for the North ending missile exports, a lifting of sanctions, removal of the North from the U.S. terrorist list, normalization of ties and, above all, the end of hostile intent between the U.S. and the North. The Bush administration apparently prefers to distance itself from previous agreements.

Given ample opportunity to state that he was either prepared to send a special envoy to Pyongyang or embrace the enmity-ending communique of October 2000 (when then-Secretary of State Madeline Albright met with Kim Jong Il), Bush merely emphasized confidence in his secretary of state, Colin Powell. But unless he sends Powell to Pyongyang, or Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage and Assistant Secretary James Kelly in his stead, or takes comparable steps, the U.S. and North Korea will remain wary protagonists.

The sole positive in the Seoul summit was what was not said about the North's reduction or redeployment of conventional forces that threaten Seoul. The North sees the deployment as its best source of leverage. In reality, without an agreement on weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the issue simply cannot be addressed. Moreover, it is primarily a Korean -- not an American -- issue, because the terms were negotiated in the 1992 North-South Basic Agreement and more than 90 percent of the forces affected are Korean.

In fairness, even the Clinton administration had to overcome initial doubts, but the danger of WMDs and North Korea's positive response to the process linked to a report by former Defense Secretary William Perry in 1999 proved decisive in changing its priorities.

During the earlier Agreed Framework negotiations, North Korea failed to secure such a changed relationship in exchange for shutting down its nuclear program. For Pyongyang, though, it must be part of any missile deal in exchange for permanently ending missile testing, deployment development and exports.

In short, Pyongyang wants assurance that it will no longer be viewed as a pariah. Seoul seems to want the same, but the U.S. administration, while talking to Seoul, is still talking past Pyongyang.