The Bush administration is determined not to allow the developing confrontation over North Korea's reactivation of its nuclear weapons programme to eclipse or deflect its preparations for a war against Iraq.
Despite the provocation, this week Mr Bush offered to talk to the North Koreans about a programme of energy and food aid in return for a weapons control regime. He is prepared to co-operate on a multilateral basis with China, Russia and the United Nations to achieve that objective, disregarding the apparent contradiction between such a policy of deterrent engagement towards North Korea and the confrontational one towards Iraq.
North Korean leaders evidently hoped to exploit the US preoccupation with Iraq and the election of a critic of US policy, Mr Roh Moo-byun, as president of South Korea, when they ordered an end to UN monitoring of a mothballed nuclear reactor and the removal of seals on a storage facility of 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods in December. Despite the North Korean rejection of Mr Bush's offer this week, US officials are prepared for a long diplomatic campaign aimed at re-engagement and expect that it will be possible to reach an agreement.
Chinese and Russian willingness to work with them bears out that conviction. But the dangers involved were starkly outlined by South Korean leaders yesterday when they spoke of the likelihood of war if the issue was not resolved peacefully. It must be remembered that North Korea is the most militarised state in the world.
The South Korean president was elected on a programme of support for a policy of engaging North Korea, an approach attacked as appeasement by sections of the Bush administration. South Koreans fear that an aggressive policy could trigger a disintegration of the North, with catastrophic consequences for both peoples. That fear has motivated successive attempts to open up relations, enabling for gradual change, avoiding conflict and allowing for a demilitarisation of the border areas, including the departure of US troops stationed there. Progress under the outgoing president, Mr Kim Dae-jung, was stopped in its tracks when this crisis developed last year.
Much is at stake in Korea, not only for its inhabitants, but for its neighbours and the wider world, as the confrontation over Iraq escalates. This week's change of course by the Bush administration is explained by these circumstances. It deserves to succeed, despite its opportunism.