TOKYO -- U.S. Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, is wise to ignore the tempest in the teapot caused by his revelation (gasp! surprise! surprise!) that there are leaders who would prefer that President George W. Bush not be re-elected. However, he needs to forcefully respond to the one foreign leader who seems willing to publicly endorse his campaign: North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. It is in Kerry's interest -- and in America's national security interest -- that Kim be promptly and convincingly disabused of the notion that waiting until November in hopes of a Kerry victory will somehow get North Korea a better deal from Washington.
No one wins votes in the U.S. by being soft on North Korea. Pyongyang needs to understand that it is inconceivable that any U.S. Congress, regardless of composition or orientation, would ever agree to normalize relations with North Korea as long as it hangs on to its nuclear aspirations. Even if Kerry (or Bush) wanted to cut a one-sided deal with Pyongyang, Congress would never endorse or, more importantly, agree to fund such an agreement until the nuclear issue is successfully resolved.
Kerry needs to make it clear, early on, that whatever his differences regarding Bush's North Korea policy, he is in complete agreement with the ultimate U.S. objective -- the complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear weapons programs (CVID) -- and with the multilateral approach that makes South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia an integral part of the solution.