US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will chair a UN Security Council meeting on North Korea on Friday to discuss how the world body can combat Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs. Going by past experience, the council may ask the North to stop conducting any more nuclear tests and strengthen sanctions on that country. This is what the UN has been doing something like a ritual every time Pyongyang conducts nuclear tests. But these are not normal times; tension has been steadily rising in East Asia ever since US President Donald Trump tweeted about the North many see as a "red line." The president declared on April 2: "Well, if China is not going to solve North Korea, we will." It is not the first time an American president gets exercised over North Korea's nuclear ambitions. The new element in the situation is the reports that the North is to be closing in on developing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that could threaten the west coast of the US and Trump's incendiary rhetoric and bellicose statements that have boxed him into some kind of showdown with the North's leader, Kim Jong-un. Vice President Mike Pence has asked North Korea not to question Trump's resolve and determination to act against its "provocations." Recent attacks in Syria and Afghanistan, he says, prove that Trump can launch "decisive" attacks when he wants to. But the North and the rest of the world would laugh at such claims because they know Uncle Sam beats up only small, nearly defenseless states. In fact, the case for its own bomb is strengthened in the eyes of Pyongyang whenever the Americans bomb another country. It remembers how in 2006, when it was preparing to test another long-range missile, President George W. Bush declared that launching it would be "unacceptable." Not only did Pyongyang go ahead with the launch anyway, but it did so on July 4. Bush did nothing though he had invaded Iraq three years earlier for destroying Saddam Hussein›s nonexistent "weapons of mass destruction." In 1969, the North shot down a US plane, killing all 31 Americans aboard. The US did not retaliate. All this must have convinced the North that the US attacks only those countries that are virtually defenseless against an invasion or aerial attack. No doubt, the US will prevail in any war with the North, but the latter is unlikely to be a pushover. In fact, the US will have its fingers severely burned in any attempt to subdue the North. So right now a military solution can be ruled out, despite Trump's macho posturing. But things can't be left where they are now if the US president is not to lose his face. Trump should convince the Americans he could have all he wanted through diplomacy. Here again, Trump is likely to be disappointed. The very fact that Trump is willing to engage him in negotiations after all the bombast would only make Kim Jong-un more arrogant and unyielding. There is no question of North Korea giving up its nuclear weapons. There appears to be little choice for the US but to live with North Korea as a nuclear power. In any negotiations, the North would also insist on a formal peace treaty ending the Korean War instead of the armistice, signed on June 27, 1953. US makes it conditional on the North "taking irreversible steps toward denuclearization." The North would reject this demand but the US should insist on an agreement limiting the North's conventional or nuclear arms. China can be made a party to any deal to ensure Pyongyang lives up to its terms. It will be Chinese responsibility to apply real pressure on North Korea to moderate its behavior. The most Washington can expect is an undertaking by the North that it will not sell its weapons abroad.
