> Robert:
> OK, what I don’t get is why the United States said no.

MY guess is that the US government requires its “nuclear umbrella” to remain over the American military forces, so long as they remain here.

My guess is that the US government probably took a long-term view that the left-wing Korean government will probably last for relatively short period.

Lawless’s revelation isn’t really news, BTW — there were reports in 2006 that Seoul had asked the US to remove reference to the nuclear umbrella during the 2005 talks, only to ask for more concrete nuclear assurances a year later in the wake of the North Korean nuclear test, leading Ye Olde Chosun to write this rather scathing editorial:

http://english.chosun.com/w21d.....00023.html

One might entertain the notion that prior to the nuclear test in October 2006, delinking Korea from the US nuclear umbrella might have sat well politically with top decision makers at the time as part of their “independent defense” initiatives, but after the test (and changes in personnel, namely Chung Dong-young standing down as Unification Minister), Seoul may have decided the time for treating South Korea’s foreign affairs as the 386 Generation’s private policy test tube had ended.

Of course, that’s all speculation and there’s probably a simpler explanation to it all.

That’s another reason I’m skeptical about Pyongyang given up its nukes–because Seoul doesn’t want it to.

But, let’s not talk about cleaning up the hypocrisies in the NPT regime, restraining the Bush administration from viewing nukes as just tactical weapons with more significant political liabilities, or considering the consequences of turning US foreign policy into a gentlemen’s club. That’s soft.