A deal with North Korea that might work

It's a negotiation and "you can negotiate anything".

With that as a premise, and without it as a premise we may as well go to war, let's negotiate a deal.

Here's a deal that the Norks may accept:  We build a molten-salt reactor of the same power capacity as what they have already.  It is a nuclear reactor and it can be used to make bombs, just as what they have now.  It is true that you may have to work a little harder at it, but you still can make a bomb with the molten-salt reactor.  So, the Norks lose nothing and gain a reactor.  What do we get?  Well, as long as the reactor is not operational, and we are testing it, the Norks must shut down their existing reactor so that they cannot make more bombs.  Otherwise, why should we build it for them?  They will still have their reactor, and can reopen it if the new one doesn't work.  They lose nothing and gain a reactor---but only in theory.  Once the theory is proven, and the new reactor works, then they must destroy their existing reactor.  Otherwise, they will have two, and we will have been screwed.

Now, if the process can continue to the point where the new reactor is proven, and the old reactor is destroyed, then the process can move on to more ambitious goals.  That would be to make a lot of power for commercial purposes.  If the Norks decide to back out at this point, they will have two reactors, but they won't have the benefit of the power potential of the new reactor.  To get that potential realized, they will have to give up something in return.

I'm thinking their missiles.

The molten-salt design is modular, so you can build new ones according to the step-by-step approach that will enable us to get what we want and the Norks can benefit from as well.  We don't have to make them any more powerful militarily than they are already.  However, this may be a risk.  I'm thinking that the risk is manageable.

At any rate, it is better than a war.