I think there’s a much larger priciple at stake here. North Korea signed the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in 1986, if memory serves, foreswearing its intentions to build nuclear weapons. It completed its obligations for joining the regime in 1992, but then the very next year, it goes ahead and pulls a fast one by saying that it has changed its mind, and that the NPT was no longer its bag, baby.
A decent bit of diplomacy reversed that course, but then in 2003, as has been mentioned, the DPRK really goes through with it, and trashed its obligations to the NPT.
If the world (heck, or even the US) were to say, “Eh, not much we can do, they are a sovereign country,” what kind of message would that send?
First, that there are no serious consequences for a country ripping up its obligations to one of the most important treaties of the past century. The one-hundred-sixty-or so countries who bound themselves not to seek nuclear weapons (not for nothing, but in exchange for assistance in building a peaceful nuclear power program) would more or less be given the green light to do the same, so long as they want to waste their own treasure on designing and producing the most horrible of weapons.
Second, such an acknowledgement would be a reverse course from the ideal of total nuclear disarmament. Yes, it’s kind of a pipe dream, but don’t we all sort of hope that there would be some way to guarantee peace and security in the world without resorting to the threat of weapons that can vaporize whole countries? I think most of us can agree that we ought to be reducing the world’s stockpile of these weapons to a much lowerlevel, and then, over the course of probably decades or generations, exploring ways to ban then entirely.
Third, there no goddamn good reason for North Korea to withdraw from the NPT. You can’t look at Bush and the Axis of Evil and the 2003 withdrawal without going back to the 1993 talk of withdrawal. By virtually every measure, the situation on the Korean penninsula has improved over the decades. ROK tourists are now able to visit the North. The US withdrew its tactical nukes from South Korea about 13 years ago. The North, as terrible shape as it is in now, is not likely to implode, explode, or crumble in the very near term. Why should the world be jerked around by this country on such a serious matter as building nuclear arms for no good reason?
There are lots of very good reasons to be concerned about North Korea, besides the notion that Kim Jong Il is a spastic whacko that could launch nukes at any moment.