Yes! NoKorea Finally Tested A Nukular Weapon

So Bushco wanted NoKorea to test a nukular weapon? Who woulda thought it?

President Bush came into office six years ago deeply skeptical of Chinese intentions, casting doubt on the idea advanced by the Clinton administration that there could be a "strategic partnership" between China and the United States.

Now, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other U.S. officials have begun to depict China's increasingly central role in the administration's myriad foreign policy problems as a significant achievement.

Rice, who arrived here Saturday on the last leg of her mission to galvanize action against North Korea, said she saw "some data points" that suggest China is becoming more of a partner on issues of importance to the United States, though the shift will not "happen in one fell swoop."

There is some evidence of China's shift, but the argument also has the virtue of finding a silver lining in the dark strategic cloud posed by North Korea's test of a nuclear weapon.

Many experts regard North Korea's test as a failure of Bush's nonproliferation policy. Critics have charged that Bush, distracted by Iraq, allowed North Korea to bolt from a Clinton-era agreement on freezing its nuclear programs, build a stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium and finally test a weapon. Bush, unlike President Bill Clinton in an earlier crisis, refused to conduct sustained bilateral negotiations with North Korea and instead set up a somewhat cumbersome six-party negotiating framework hosted by China.

At many points, the United States found itself at odds with other partners in the six-party process, such as China and South Korea, which repeatedly urged the Bush administration to show more flexibility in its tactics. Meanwhile, administration officials were often divided on North Korea policy, with some wanting to engage the country and others wanting to isolate it.

Before North Korea announced it had detonated a nuclear device, some senior officials even said they were quietly rooting for a test, believing that would finally clarify the debate within the administration. [emphasis mine]

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