Let's be clear on the Bush administration's stance toward North Korea. It isn't just that the United States doesn't trust North Korea. If trust is the problem, you can always dream up an inspection regime sufficiently intrusive to make trust irrelevant. (At least, you can always do so when you're looking for nuclear ballistic missiles, which don't exactly fit in glove compartments.) But the Bush administration refuses to even dream up an ideal ultradraconian inspection regime and put it on the negotiating table.

It's very hard to make sense of this stance. After all, you'd think it's a can't-lose proposition: If the North Koreans turn down the offer, then that's good PR ammunition for Bush, and if they accept, then the world is a safer place. I hate to be cynical (well, OK, I don't actually hate it), but the only explanation I can think of is that Bush is afraid the North Koreans would say yes, in which case the rationale for missile defense would suffer a body blow.