Coyner’s Comment:  Finally, a plausible, if unproven, explanation about all the closed mouths around the world about the Israeli air strike on Syria:  "Pyongyang -- in private bilateral negotiations with Washington -- handed over its buyers list, including the lot numbers and details of what it sold to whom and when, and that the Israelis launched a strike on Syria following the U.S. disclosure of a small piece of that information to Tel Aviv.  In return, North Korea has been promised removal from the U.S. State Sponsors of Terrorism list, in addition to other incentives (perhaps including progress on normalization talks) as part of overall bilateral negotiations."

Now, it all beats the heck out of me if any of the above is close to reality.  But it at least it makes a bit of sense given everyone’s reactions and the ho-hum, business as usual approach to diplomacy.

MORNING INTELLIGENCE BRIEF

A Softened U.S. Stance Toward North Korea?
Stratfor Strategic Forecasting
September 27, 2007 

The six-party talks over North Korea's nuclear program are ramping up again in Beijing amid seemingly contradictory signals from the United States.

On one hand, North Korea was implicated in nuclear proliferation, through a series of leaks (intentional or otherwise) to U.S. and Israeli press outlets, after a Sept. 6 Israeli airstrike in Syria that was reportedly aimed at a facility hosting North Korean missile or nuclear technology and workers. On the other hand, U.S. representative to the six-party talks Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill is offering an upbeat assessment of progress on dismantling North Korea's nuclear facilities following a pre-meeting session with North Korean envoy Kim Kye Gwan on the eve of the six-party talks.

Meanwhile, U.S. President George W. Bush used his address at the U.N. General Assembly to label North Korea a "brutal regime," and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice separately suggested that North Korea might be removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism even before the question of kidnapped Japanese citizens is resolved.

The six-party talks are, in and of themselves, not necessary to solve the North Korean nuclear issue. The nuclear crisis -- or interminable bureaucratic discussion punctuated by moments of excitement -- has been going on for more than a decade. At its most basic level, it represents an attempt by North Korea, a nation squeezed between U.S.-backed South Korea and an at-best-ambiguous China to the north, to break free from the international isolation left over from the collapse of its Cold-War life-support system, all on its own terms. And the main focus of North Korean attention is the United States.

Interestingly, despite the rising speculation about North Korean proliferation to Syria, Washington does not appear to be taking too hard a line against Pyongyang leading up to this round of talks, aside from Bush's requisite lumping of North Korea in with the likes of Belarus, Syria and Iran. And Pyongyang does not appear to be taking steps that would indicate it is all that concerned about the circulating accusations or the attendant consequences for such actions one would normally expect from the United States.

Rather, it seems the earliest hints that came out after the Israeli airstrike on Syria might be the most accurate: that Pyongyang -- in private bilateral negotiations with Washington -- handed over its buyers list, including the lot numbers and details of what it sold to whom and when, and that the Israelis launched a strike on Syria following the U.S. disclosure of a small piece of that information to Tel Aviv. In return, North Korea has been promised removal from the U.S. State Sponsors of Terrorism list, in addition to other incentives (perhaps including progress on normalization talks) as part of overall bilateral negotiations.

The mystery and obfuscation following the Israeli strike against Syria, then, allows Washington and North Korea to both play like they don't know what is going on, with neither losing face. Israel leaks that it was in possession of the information and shared it with the United States, not the other way around. (This also makes up for the obvious intelligence failure on the part of the Israelis, if they truly had to wait for North Korea to tell them where the offending material was hiding). North Korea calls Washington a hypocrite for helping Israel develop nuclear weapons and quickly meets with the Syrians, feigning ignorance and claiming conspiracy.

And remarkably, amid what might be proof positive of both Syrian attempts to acquire nuclear weapons and North Korean proliferation of nuclear material, there is no slowing of the six-party process, or of Washington's negotiations with Pyongyang.

If that is the case, then two things will come out of this week's six-party talks. First, there will be clear movement on North Korea's commitment to dismantle the aging Yongbyon nuclear facility, as well as on Washington's assurances of economic aid and removing Pyongyang from international blacklists. But this is window dressing.

More important will be the panic in China (if not also in South Korea, Japan and Russia) as it sees the United States and North Korea reshaping their relationship in spite of the other regional interests. This could strip Beijing of much of its negotiating leverage with Washington on other issues, leave Seoul off-balance as it tries to pursue its own path with regard to the upcoming inter-Korean summit and keep the outlying parties -- Moscow and Tokyo -- unsure of just what the United States will do next, or how that will affect Japan's attempts to take charge of shaping Northeast Asia and Russia's efforts to reassert itself in the region.