Senator Jon Kyl, November 1, 2002

About a decade ago, the secretive, Stalinist government of North Korea appeared intent on developing nuclear weapons. This justly caused considerable concern among members of the international community. A nuclear-armed North Korea, it was feared, would destabilize Asia and give awesome weapons to a hostile, unpredictable regime in close proximity to allies such as South Korea and Japan.

In 1994, the Clinton administration chose to pursue a policy of negotiation with North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, an oppressive dictator, to encourage the country to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

The agreement, reached with the assistance of former President Jimmy Carter, awarded North Korea generous economic incentives from the West. This included fuel-oil shipments and a commitment by the United States to help the Pyongyang government build two nuclear reactors, supposedly for non-military use. In return, North Korea would completely abandon its nuclear weapons program.

The accord - more formally known as the Agreed Framework - was hailed as a major foreign-policy success. It was regarded by the international community as a textbook case of how to deal peacefully with even the most hostile of the regimes and to use reasoned accommodation to keep nuclear bombs from a dangerous tyrant.

President Clinton called the agreement a real foreign-policy "win" that he had delivered to the incoming Bush administration. And in the last days of his administration, he expressed irritation at President-elect Bush's request that Clinton refrain from pursuing further agreements with North Korea pending a full policy review.

Clinton loyalists were even more critical when President Bush labeled North Korea part of an "axis of evil" that threatened the rest of the world. The Clintonites saw North Korea's signing of the Agreed Framework as an effort by North Korea to join the international community as a peaceful partner, and frowned upon such "harsh" rhetoric.

But, as we now know, their view was nothing more than wishful thinking.

It turns out that while the U.S. proceeded with plans to build reactors as part of its agreement with North Korea, North Korea continued to pursue a secret nuclear weapons program anyway. In addition, over the last decade, the Pyongyang dictatorship has harbored terrorists, proliferated weapons to hostile regimes, and recently threatened the United States with the prospect that it was working on even "more powerful" weapons than nuclear arms.

In short, the U.S. accord with North Korea was a colossal failure, its host of economic "incentives" to ensure North Korea's compliance costing U.S. taxpayers more than $1 billion. It is also, hopefully, a splash of cold water for those inclined to believe that all duplicitous tyrants can be dealt with through negotiated agreements that depend on their good faith.

It is also a vindication of President Bush, who was right to label North Korea - whose government starves millions of its citizens and punishes with death citizens who try to escape - an "evil" regime.

So what happens now?

First and foremost, since North Korea's covert nuclear program is a blatant violation of the Agreed Framework, the United States should consider this accord nullified. The U.S. should cease support for the Korean Energy Development Organization, and U.S. fuel-oil shipments should be permanently terminated. We should also immediately urge our allies, South Korea and Japan, to halt funding for the reactor projects in North Korea as well.

Secondly, the Bush administration should pursue the full range of economic and diplomatic sanctions available to compel North Korean compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which the North Korean government now admits to violating for a decade.

Most importantly, the United States should work aggressively with its allies to prepare for a future beyond the current Stalinist regime in Pyongyang. There are a variety of political and economic measures that have yet to be undertaken that can help to bring about a change in the regime, such as ending all subsidies, dramatically increasing Radio Free Asia broadcasting, and announcing a policy of temporary first asylum for people seeking to flee North Korea.

In light of North Korea's mendacity, we can also hope that the rest of the world has learned a valuable lesson about the dangers of trying to make deals with governments that have long records of hostile behavior and broken promises. And that we will heed that lesson in confronting other nations that pose similar threats to the rest of the world.

U.S. Senator John Kyl (Republican of Arizona) is a member of the Senate Judiciary, Finance, Energy and Natural Resources, and Intelligence Committees.