Six-Party Talks: Who's Really on the Ropes?

So the threat of sanctions on North Korea has apparently brought Pyongyang back to the six-party talks so favored by the Bush administration as a way to get the DPRK to shut down its nuclear program. That's right, hit Kim Jong Il where it really hurts: cut off his supply of caviar and cognac. (Are platform shoes luxury items?)

Poor Chris Hill - able diplomat as he is, he's gone to Beijing without any clothes. On the first day of the meeting, he told reporters that he and the North Korean negotiator merely exchanged pleasantries; Kim Kye Gwan would not meet separately with Hill on the sidelines. Not yet. In Mr Kim's own time, Mr Hill. (The US refuses to hold head-to-head negotiations with the DPRK, preferring to meet 'casually', off to the side of the six-party talks, while the four other 'negotiators' - China, Japan, Russia and South Korea - twiddle their thumbs.)

Back home in Washington, Hill's former boss, Colin Powell, was telling it like he didn't when he was in office. The US is losing in Iraq and simply does not have the troops needed to "win", Powell said. America's power and influence diminished by Bush's folly in Iraq. Powell believes Washington should talk to the Iranians and the Syrians. Bush 41's consiglieri James Baker thinks so too. Does Bush 43 have any choice? No more "Axis of Evil"; it's now all about just getting access to those who really have influence in Iraq.

Surely Kim Jong Il was watching Powell on CBS's "Face the Nation" and must be thinking that eventually the US will have to agree to honest-to-goodness bilateral talks. The six-party show going on in Beijing is bound to yield only more posturing, more recalcitrance (from both Washington and Pyongyang), more nothing. And now that North Korea has gone nuclear, would Pyongyang ever agree to denuclearize? Can they even be trusted to do so?

America's got zero leverage. It relies on Beijing to muscle Pyongyang back to the negotiating table, but only offers the threat of sanctions that won't stick. What's needed is more crow on the White House menu. Forget the six-party dance. It's time for the US to say to North Korea: Let's just sit and talk one-on-one.