Ignoring tyrant's tantrums

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Any parent has at some point experienced a child"s "Terrible Twos" — that phase of the child"s life in which the world exists for her or him alone. Deny the child what is wanted and the parent is subjected to the indignity of the young one"s temper tantrums. The child cares not where and how the tantrum is conducted, nor even who witnesses it.

The yelling, the kicking, the screaming continues until either the exhausted child or embarrassed parent yields. It is truly a test of wills, but one children eventually outgrow.

What is disturbing is when the child reaches adulthood yet continues to subject others to such immature tantrums.

Since February, we have witnessed a number of international tantrums ordered by North Korean tyrant, Kim Jong-il.

For the last 10 years, the ruling party of South Korea had coddled its neighbor to the north. For 10 years, rather than using a tough love approach to entice North Korea into behaving as a responsible member of the international community, Seoul had spared the rod and spoiled the child. Pyongyang would threaten and intimidate Seoul and those seeking to temper its conduct, causing South Korea to launch its Sunshine Policy.

This policy was nothing more than appeasement — giving the North almost everything it wanted while demanding nothing in return. It was an abysmal foreign policy failure, allowing Seoul to be easily intimidated. Such intimidation extended to Seoul"s rejection of its moral responsibility to even cite Pyongyang for its human-rights abuses for fear it might upset the North.

Thus, as Pyongyang persecuted its own citizens or starved them to death, Seoul did little to call a brutal child to task.

With the presidential election victory of Seoul"s GNP opposition party last December, a new sheriff came to town in February. In somewhat more diplomatic words, the new South Korean government informed the North Koreans to forget the 10-year Sunshine Policy. It made clear the one-way street by which the North had received billions of dollars in aid was coming to the end unless Pyongyang demonstrated by its words and deeds the street worked two-ways.

What was the North"s response? In a fit of rage, adult-child Kim Jong-il threw a temper tantrum. North Korean military aircraft made surprise runs south toward the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), prompting Seoul to scramble its own jets to intercept them. The North's aircraft broke off before entering the South"s airspace. The North Koreans have been averaging one such feint per week since the new president took office.

As Seoul continued to insist on responsible conduct by Pyongyang and the return of hundreds of South Koreans held captive since the 1953 war or kidnapped afterward, improved human rights and fulfillment of the North's promise during the Six Party Talks concerning its nuclear program, Pyongyang stepped up its intimidation efforts.

Shooting itself in the foot economically, Pyongyang ordered South Korean officials out of Kaesong — an industrial complex in the North where South Korean companies employ 23,000 workers from the North. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak responded by indicating Seoul would not expand economic cooperation.

On March 27, finally having found its moral compass, Seoul voted in favor of a United Nations resolution condemning North Korea"s human- rights abuses. One day after South Korean officials departed Kaesong, Pyongyang test-fired a barrage of short-range missiles without notice. That was followed by a weekend threat to launch a pre-emptive strike to "reduce [the South] to ashes."

Seoul has chosen to give the North Korean provocations limited comment, perhaps opting to play the role of a parent ignoring a child"s attention-seeking tantrums. We have yet to see the ultimate impact this tactic will have on the North Korean bully but, for the moment, it seems to be making him more bellicose.

This writer has often challenged those favoring the Sunshine Policy to list what benefits it has yielded to enhance regional security. The Sunshine Policy has, in effect, been a way to disguise, as aid, what is really tribute being paid by the South to the North to maintain stability. Paying tribute never works as long as the recipient maintains the same mindset. The only thing that changes over time is the amount of tribute ultimately demanded.

It has taken the South Koreans 10 years to learn the North, absent a regime change, is unlikely to change for the positive. But we cannot blame the South Koreans for being slow to learn this lesson. We are guilty of the same sin. After eight years of diplomacy by the Clinton White House and eight years of the same by the Bush White House there is little of positive value to show for such patience and effort.

Unless we want to see things remain in a stalemate much as they have in Fidel Castro"s Cuba, we had better start to conduct a more responsible foreign policy toward Pyongyang — one offering rewards but tying it, like the South Koreans now have, to responsible conduct.

James G. Zumwalt, a Marine veteran of the Persian Gulf and Vietnam wars, is a contributor to The Washington Times.