NEW HAVEN, Connecticut -- Although buried by headlines from Iraq and Hurricane Katrina-devastated U.S. Gulf Coast region, the fourth round of six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program, about to resume in Beijing, presents the best chance yet to resolve diplomatically the simmering crisis on the Korean Peninsula. That's the good news.
Unfortunately, the United States remains inflexible in its negotiation strategy. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has ruled out changing the sequence of the U.S. disarmament proposal, which envisions Pyongyang first disclosing its weapons programs, followed by provisional multilateral security guarantees.
The Bush administration also seems to be losing strategic coherence in drawing unusual attention to the issue of human rights in North Korea, which, while important, is an unnecessary and dangerous distraction from the problem du jour -- North Korea's nuclear program.