North Korea Sanctions

Foreign policy expert Nancy Soderberg on the latest U.N. resolution and ending North Korea's nuclear testing.

Nancy Soderberg: I think that the North Korean decision to detonate a nuclear weapon was a wake up call that this crisis needs some attention. Their weapons are crude; their missiles are crude. Best case scenario, if everything went perfectly, though, they could possibly hit Alaska or Hawaii with their weapons. So, it's a very serious issue. It's run by a - I don't know if he's insane or crazy, but someone who's very volatile, clearly.

And this has been festering for six years with no meaningful negotiations. The Security Council, however, did react very strongly and put very tough sanctions on, which the Bush administration should get credit for. That was a very difficult resolution to get China and Russia on board. So it is not over. And the missiles and the nuclear weapons continue to be manufactured by North Korea. So, we're no safer today than we were before that resolution was passed over the weekend.

Tavis: You said a moment ago, and I get the point, somewhat jokingly, that you don't know if he is insane or crazy. I suspect, though, seriously, there are folk watching this in parts of the world who perhaps think that we, the U.S., that our White House, that our president is insane and crazy. After all, we have more of these weapons than anybody else in the world.

And yet we somehow think we still have the right to decide and determine who gets it and who doesn't get it. Is that insane or crazy? We can blow the world up 100 million times.

Soderberg: Well, and the Venezuelan president thinks President Bush is the devil. So, there's a lot of words flying around here. No, we have been a responsible member of the nuclear club. And we have committed to the non-proliferation treaty, which eventually commits us to slowly get rid of all these weapons. The U.S. is not the problem here.

It's the rogue states that are seeking nuclear weapons, and potentially with respect to North Korea, could easily give them to terrorists. So, this is a major problem. What the Bush administration stands at fault for is mostly because of ideology, refusing to negotiate an acceptable deal with North Korea. There's been a deal on the table with North Korea for six years.

And really the hard liners in the administration have just refused to get a deal. If you talk to the administration people who were with them for the last five years, any time they're getting, inching towards a deal, there'd be someone who would pull back here. Because I think partly because they didn't wanna look like they were Bill Clinton negotiating with North Korea.

But the fact is you have to negotiate with your enemies. Talking to our enemies is not appeasement. And there's a whole structure called the six-party talks set up. We need to use that and get a deal here.

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