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U.S. must toughen sanctions on N. Korea
If our country is attacked with a nuclear, chemical, or biological weapon in the next decade, I predict that the weapon will pass through our borders or one of our ports in a shipping container. I also predict that if such an attack comes, the weapon will be made with materials or plans from North Korea. This danger is so great because the Obama administration has sent a clear message to North Korea: you can sell anything to anyone, cross any red line, or attack any ally, and do so with full confidence that you will get away with it. In fact, we might even give you aid while you're doing it. Two weeks ago, South Korea's largest newspaper reported that North Korean technicians have been helping Syria manufacture chemical weapons to use against its people. For months, President Obama has been telling Syria that the use of chemical weapons would cross a "red line." If you wonder whether a typical rogue dictator takes such threats seriously, just look how quickly Bashar Assad called the president's bluff. Furthermore, if the use of chemical weapons was a red line for Syria, the proliferation of chemical weapons is also a red line for North Korea. Maybe Kim Jong Un wouldn't hesitate to sell a nuclear weapon to a terrorist before, but no action we've taken since would further deter him. The president owes us straight answers about whether this latest report is true and he must explain how he intends to deter North Korea's reckless young dictator. The report of North Korea's chemical weapons proliferation is part of a larger effort to aid Syria. North Korean military advisers are reportedly in Syria, helping Assad's army with logistics, planning and artillery tactics. In January, the Israeli Air Force struck Syria's main research facility for chemical and biological weapons, which has been linked to North Korea. In 2009, at least two North Korean arms shipments were intercepted on their way to Iran, for the likely use of Syria's terrorist ally, Hezbollah, or Hamas. That same year, Greek authorities intercepted a shipment of 14,000 chemical protective suits and boxes of chemical reagents in transit from North Korea to Syria. In September 2007, the Israeli Air Force destroyed a North Korean-designed nuclear reactor in the Syrian desert, shortly before it went online. The attack came just seven months after the State Department signed a denuclearization agreement with North Korea. Instead of abandoning the deal after learning of North Korea's duplicity, the State Department concealed North Korea's involvement from Congress and continued to ship fuel oil to North Korea. Presidents should not make empty threats, and they should not throw away their leverage for the promises of untrustworthy dictators. President Obama's empty threats have made us less safe, and President Bush's ill-advised 2007 deal abandoned the one strategy that has worked against North Korea: freezing its offshore bank accounts and its money-laundering network. North Korea cannot maintain its leaders' opulent lifestyle or million-man conscript army without foreign cash. Starting in September 2005, the Treasury Department methodically unplugged North Korea's money-laundering network by threatening to cut foreign banks that launder North Korean money out of the global financial network. Within a year, Kim Jong Il's palace economy was brought to the brink of ruin. That pressure forced him to seek a deal to get the sanctions lifted. North Korea demanded that we lift most U.S. sanctions first, and then denied the existence of a hidden uranium enrichment program that it later showed to a visiting nuclear scientist. In the final months of the Bush administration, North Korea reneged, correctly assuming that Obama would want his own deal and would hesitate to re-impose the sanctions. Congress is now seeking to restore, toughen, and target the sanctions that worked before with H.R. 1771, the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act. The sanctions implemented by this bill, one with bipartisan support from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, cannot be lifted until we verify North Korea's disarmament. Of course, North Korea might never agree to disarmament, but if these sanctions are enforced aggressively, we may achieve the only real guarantee of North Korea's disarmament: the end of North Korea. Posted by: Steve White 2013-08-21 |
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