North Korea to begin dismantling nuclear reactor

President Bush announced yesterday morning that the terror-state status of North Korea would be lifted.  This announcement follows the news that the communist nation has shared its nuclear plans with China and, subsequently, with the other members of the six-nation coalition looking to reduce the potential of another nuclear threat in the world.

Though this is certainly good news, there is also some speculation that the original demands of the United States were not met; rather, the stringency of the demands were lowered from those originally placed by the U.S. in order for North Korea to come to compliance.  Nevertheless, the international community should rejoice that another hostile nation is reducing its nuclear armament.  So, where do we go from here?

Update: The reactor was detroyed this morning.  Also, North Korea promises to expedite the removal of fuel cell rods as well.  The important question: what about all the weapons they possible have?

This news comes as a huge success for the Bush administration.  It stands out among recent bad publicity regarding the White House’s ability to conduct diplomacy on any level, let alone multinationally.  Supporters of presidential candidate Senator John McCain (AZ) must be ecstatic to have stayed loyal to President Bush.  This shows that the republican party is not simply a war-mongering, tax-cutting, crazy group of old, white men trying to take over this nation (only because they recently lost total dominance due to changes in Senate power).  At the very least, they can claim to be able to conduct broad-based diplomacy to diffuse a troubling situation, which is completely contrary to past actions (read: beginning the War in Iraq) and, consequently, reduces some of the impact of the arguments posed by the Obama camp.

As far as for the citizenry, we should definitely be happy for this success.  Granted, the U.S. is not the most exemplary nation in the world as far as being forthcoming with weapon stocks; yet, knowing the secrets of a threatening, terrorist-sponsoring nation like North Korea is obviously something to be happy about.  We should also remain hopeful that this leads to a reduction in the nation’s human rights violations as well as opening the gates to another trade partner.  Trade with North Korea could be stimulating to the American economy and lead to further technological advances for both the U.S. and North Korea.  Just consider: ever since South Korea became allies with and protected by the U.S., they have become one of the world leaders in tech development and manufacture.  In fact, the mobile technology and computing abilities of this country blows what Americans do on a daily basis out of the water.

Nevertheless, I am certain that this news will certainly lead to a safer world and will hopefully lead to a more prosperous one.  There is still some skepticism among the media and politicians, but this still a big step.

Source CNN article