Real deal:

Commendably, the Bush administration is working to undo one of its worst blunders — the abandonment of a 1994 Clinton administration deal that kept North Korea from producing plutonium for nuclear weapons. In a clear step back from its past confrontational rhetoric, the administration agreed to a February 2007 deal that could lead to the dismantling of all of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and programmes. That deal stalled, but recent talks with Pyongyang promise to put it back on track.

The 2007 deal called for parallel actions. So, after Russian deliveries of heavy fuel oil and energy assistance from South Korea were not delivered on schedule, the North stopped disabling its sole nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. A more serious snag occurred when the Bush administration demanded an accounting of components North Korea may have acquired for a uranium enrichment programme and details on how much Pyongyang helped Syria with a suspected nuclear reactor.

Once North Korea disables Yongbyon, no plutonium could be produced for a year. It will take some time to reach that objective. It will take more trading of quid pro quos — a staple of statecraft that Bush disdained. But there was never any other way to remove nuclear weapons from North Korea. —The Boston Globe