The Agreed Framework was set up in order to get the North Koreans stop working on making an atomic bomb. The Clinton Administration agreed to build two nuclear reactors for North Korea in exchange for the agreement not to build the nukes. The Bush Administration ended that program on the accusation that the North Koreans were cheating on Uranium enrichment.
Subsequently, the North Koreans tested a bomb and the criticism ensued from the left for this as bad policy. I decided to revisit what one lefty blogger had to say about it.
My reading of The Mahablog's series on the issue showed no reason why they would be proliferation resistant other than having inspectors allowed back in the country. This is after the entire brouhaha began with the North Koreans kicking out the inspectors so they could reprocess the spent fuel for its plutonium. So, what happens after the nuclear power plants get built, and the Norks decide to kick out the inspectors again?
As for the Uranium enrichment for making bombs, well, that's hardly a reason to shut down the Framework, but keep in mind that the Norks already had the capability to make low enriched Uranium for making their Plutonium. Once the plants got built, they could kick out the inspectors again and substitute their own fuel rods for the those that were provided before, and continue making Plutonium with the reactors that we built for them.
Not such a hot deal. The best you get out of it was delaying the Norks from doing what they intended to do in the first place, which was build a bomb. For this, Clinton pays a heavy price to the Norks.
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