Libya’s lesson for North Korea

Mira Rapp-Hooper and Kenneth N. Waltz

TheAtlantic.com

Kim Jong Il may be crazy, but he’s not stupid, said Mira Rapp-Hooper and Kenneth N. Waltz. North Korea’s Dear Leader surely grasps the lesson of Muammar al-Qaddafi’s gruesome demise in Libya: “A dictator who wants to hold on to power should also hold on to his nuclear weapons.”

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In 2005, North Korea agreed to gradually dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for foreign aid, diplomatic relations, and a security guarantee—and then reneged. American officials met with the North Koreans this week to discuss restarting stalled disarmament talks, but why would Kim give up his nukes, especially now?

Qaddafi dismantled his budding nuclear program in 2003 to end his status as an international pariah. Eight years later, the U.S. and the West backed a popular revolution in Libya; today, Qaddafi’s liberated people are celebrating, after standing in line to see his “bludgeoned corpse.” Dictators everywhere took note of that image, and of what happened to Saddam Hussein after his nuclear ambitions were thwarted. Once again, the U.S. has proved that dictators have only one “true security guarantee”: nukes.