Playing the Waiting Game: How Kim Jong Il Beats the U.S.

There are a lot of perks to being a dictator: you can recklessly spend as much money as you want, you can dispose of internal opponents in as ruthless a manner as you like, you can appoint your children and children’s children into cushy posts and assure your family a lifetime of decadence while your people wallow in squalor, and so much more. Life is good at the top. On the international stage, there is also one advantage that dictators have over leaders of democratic nations – and it is an advantage that Kim Jong Il, the vertically challenged "Dear Leader" of North Korea, has played masterfully in his international dealings: the advantage of time.

Kim Jong Il doesn’t have to worry about mid-term elections, term-limits, becoming a "lame duck," or any of the other pitfalls of a democratically elected leader. Particularly in dealing with the United States, Kim is a master at being patient with administrations he doesn’t like. He plays the waiting game, and he plays it well. If the political climate is not to his advantage, he cuts off negotiation, waits until the climate shifts back in his favor, and then engages again. As a dictator, he can do this. As a President, George W. Bush cannot.

The latest round of waiting looks like it is going to benefit the Kim Jong Il regime a great deal. Fresh out of the 2000 elections, George W. Bush and his administration were ready to take a radically different approach to international relations than their predecessors. In spite of the controversy surrounding the elections, Bush had at least one strong reason to believe he could navigate, politically, with free reign: the Republican-controlled Congress. After the September 11th, 2001 attacks, he seemed to have an even stronger mandate. In his famous speech after the attacks, he included North Korea in his "axis of evil," putting the Kim regime on notice: the waiting game was about to begin again.

In 2002, Bush struck the death blow to the fledgling 1994 Agreed Framework, accusing North Korea of having a covert uranium-enrichment program, and suspending fuel shipments. Work on the light-water reactors promised to North Korea under the agreement was suspended the following year, sealing its fate. In 2005, the U.S. Department of Justice had several North Korean bank accounts frozen, most famously at Banco Delta Asia in Macau, in response to alleged North Korean counterfeiting of U.S. dollars.

In the intervening years, the United States became tied up in Iraq, with that war growing increasingly unpopular, and affecting the image of the Bush Administration both domestically and abroad. North Korea has since fired long-range missiles and tested a nuclear weapon, all without serious consequences. As Bush’s international policy became more untenable, Kim Jong Il’s actions became more bold.

Finally, in the fall of 2006, something drastic happened – not in North Korea, but in the United States: the Republicans lost control of Congress for the first time in over a decade. With the Iraq War continuing to go badly and now his major support base gone, Bush was suddenly in danger of spending his last two years as a "lame duck." With little to show for his six years in office, Bush needed some major victory to keep his administration afloat.

Enter Kim Jong Il, stage left.

Suddenly back and eager to negotiate, North Korea has to love what it is hearing: unfreezing its funds. Restoring diplomatic relations with the U.S. Maybe even an official peace treaty ending the Korean War. Of course, none of these will come free. North Korea will have to dismantle its nuclear weapons program and shut down its nuclear reactor. But all these things are a relatively small price to pay if it gets them what they have been seeking for at least a decade: normal relations with the U.S.

When all is said and done, if this agreement goes through, George W. Bush will play this up as an achievement for his Presidency. He got Kim Jong Il to give up his nuclear aspirations, normalized relations, and maybe even officially ended the Korean War after 50 years. The reality, however, is that Kim Jong Il is the winner. His patience paid off, and he will likely get far more than he could have imagined four years ago. He tested a nuclear bomb and fired missiles, and emerged not only unscathed, but with a laundry list of achievements to show for it.

He played the waiting game, and he won. Time is power for Kim Jong Il. And it’s the one thing he has a lot of.