Now Comes the Hard Part.(Six Party Talks)

Byline: Michael J. Green (Green was special assistant to President George W. Bush for Asian affairs from 2004 to 2005. He now teaches at Georgetown University and is the Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.)

The ink was barely dry on the nuclear deal signed February 13 by North Korea and the other members of the Six Party Talks before pundits began to blast the agreement. The arrangement--under which North Korea promised to seal and then disable core parts of its nuclear-weapons programs in exchange for energy aid and gradual relief from international sanctions--has been attacked by hawks, including former Bush staffers, as a reward for bad behavior.

Former Clinton aides, meanwhile, say it's nothing more than what they negotiated in the 1994 Agreed Framework--which would still be in effect had Bush stuck with the plan. As happens so often these days, the left and the right are converging to attack the president. But while the deal may not be perfect, both sides have got it wrong.

To start, the new accord goes way beyond the 1994 agreement, which promised North Korea two light-water nuclear reactors worth more than $5 billion and hundreds of millions of dollars of heavy fuel oil in exchange for its freezing and eventually dismantling its nuclear programs. There was no deadline built into the deal, and enforcement fell to Washington alone.

This time, North Korea is being offered no light-water reactors and is being given a very strict deadline--60 days--within which it must begin sealing its nuclear facility at Yongbyon and detail all its nuclear-weapons programs. After that Pyongyang must start identifying and dismantling its nuclear programs. China and North Korea's other neighbors are now parties to the arrangement and have agreed to strict benchmarks.

The involvement of these outside parties helps explain why the deal finally came together now. China was far less cooperative in 2002, when the United States caught North Korea cheating on the Agreed Framework by running a highly enriched uranium (HEU) weapons program; Beijing refused to get involved. The Bush administration eventually managed to convince the Chinese to host the Six Party Talks, however. Beijing continued to support Pyongyang's demands for light-water reactors and avoided putting pressure on Kim Jong Il. But China now had its own reputation on the line.

When North Korea defiantly tested a nuclear device last year against Beijing's wishes, China's President Hu Jintao was reportedly furious at the loss of face. He began squeezing North Korea in ways once unimaginable, supporting U.N. ...