Properly, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced Sunday that the United States would try to defuse a confrontation over nuclear weapons with North Korea by talking with this isolated nation. Whether the talks become the negotiation North Korean leader Kim Jong Il wants remains to be seen, but it is considerably better than the Bush administration’s early dismissive approach, which may have helped exacerbate the current standoff.

In 1994, the Clinton administration persuaded the North Koreans to close down their nuclear power station program and allow for inspectors in exchange for a commitment of $5 billion to construct nuclear reactors that would not help produce nuclear weapons and for fuel oil. The agreement was always a bit shaky, with neither side trusting the other. The U.S. policy of being willing to strike should a plutonium reactor at the Yongbyon facility restart further added to the tension.

Still, it was a beginning and it was followed by South Korea’s diplomatic advance of persuading North Korea to agree to family visits and regular talk of slowly bringing North Korea out of its Cold War defensiveness. The Bush administration, like Clinton in 1992, began by trying to focus on domestic issues, initially ignoring or pointedly rejected opportunities for talks with North Korea, and further worsened the relationship with the president’s “axis of evil” characterization. So when Secretary Powell said over the weekend that the United States would not capitulate to provocations by saying, “Let’s have a negotiation because we want to appease your misbehavior,” the larger point missed is that such a step is dramatic now because regular talks had not been occurring all along. Had they been, continued discussion would have seemed a natural step rather than a capitulation.

None of this is to minimize the North Korea’s contribution to what the Secretary Powell does not want to call a crisis. Kim Jong Il has been hugely irresponsible in his behavior and President Bush has created an improved and increasingly nuanced policy toward North Korea since the early days of his presidency and talks eventually were reopened with Pyongyang, although the momentum was gone. His requests for support from neighboring Russia and China reportedly were rebuffed. However undiplomatic his axis-of-evil line, he was closest to right with North Korea.

Even if North Korea has no intention of using its nuclear weapons – doing so would be suicidal – their presence and the opportunity for error would make its neighborhood a much more dangerous place. And considering the range of its latest missiles, it has a large neighborhood. An irrational North Korea is not farfetched because credible reports suggest that the country is imploding from a failed economy that in turn has brought mass starvation, flight of those able to leave and an ever-more militarized posture.

Talks are a good start. A massive, multinational attempt to bring this failing nation into the world, whether this is called capitulation or a measure of needed safety, should be the topic of conversation.