HONG KONG -- As the latest Korean crisis has developed, one contradiction has been obvious: The Bush administration refused to talk with North Korea until Pyongyang abandoned nuclear blackmail and returned to honoring all the treaties and agreements that it has recently repudiated. Yet the Bush administration also constantly reiterated that this crisis -- which it has refused to label as a crisis -- could be solved by diplomacy.
Now a lot of things can be accomplished through diplomacy. But nothing can be achieved without talking.
Of course, the Bush administration was trying to make a serious point with its refusal to talk: No nation should have to be persuaded to keep its commitments. As the North Koreans have demanded fresh talks with the Americans, they projected the image of seeking a further reward for doing what they had already promised to do, but had not done.