SYRIA’S MYSTERY REACTOR

Many questions remained after the Bush administration released what it called photographic evidence that North Korea had been helping Syria build a nuclear reactor. But one thing is clear: President Bush is staying the course with his effort to complete a nuclear agreement with North Korea.

Hard-liners in and out of the administration continue to portray the Syrian project as evidence of North Korea’s perfidy. But the president rightly continues to support the six-nation talks now at a crucial stage in Beijing.

The Syrian reactor is still a puzzle. Israeli war planes destroyed it Sept. 6, but details were secret until the White House briefed members of Congress and the media on April 24. No nuclear fuel had been supplied, and there was no indication of where it would have come from. U.S. intelligence officials told The New York Times that they had only “low confidence” that Syria was preparing to build a nuclear weapon.

If Syria had been trying to build nukes, why would it risk retaliation by neighboring Israel with its mighty air force and hundreds of nuclear warheads? Nobody seems to know, and hardly anyone seems to believe Syria’s denial.

Why did Israel bomb the reactor site (apparently with U.S. encouragement) instead of demanding an investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency?

Why did North Korea help Syria build a replica of its nuclear plant at Yongbyon? A senior U.S. intelligence official gave the Times a one-word answer: “Cash.” Its nuclear aid to Syria started in 2002, when North Korea was economically strapped and no settlement with the U.S. was in sight.

Everything changed when Condoleezza Rice became secretary of state and got rid of several administration hard-liners who fought negotiations and kept trying to drive North Korea into economic collapse. The president evidently concluded that isolating North Korea wasn’t working and had simply given it time to increase its nuclear weapons stockpile from two to about 10.

The struggle continues inside the administration, with the hawks making much of the fact that North Korea missed the Dec. 31 deadline in accounting for its nukes. But the United States also has been slow in its part of the bargain. The agreed deal consists of parallel concessions. As North Korea discloses its nuclear stockpile, the U.S. is committed to begin the process of removing North Korea from its list of terrorist states and lifting sanctions under the Trading With the Enemy Act.

Eventual normalization of diplomatic and economic relations would enable North Korea to get aid from the World Bank and other international sources and reduce its desperate need to export nuclear technology.