The danger of terrorist nuclear attacks on American soil is not only very real, but disturbingly likely. Based on current trends, a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States is more likely than not in the decade ahead. So says Graham Allison, Harvard professor and former campaign adviser to John Kerry. Allison made his prediction this past July. In the wake of Israel’s destruction in September of a Syrian reactor modeled on North Korea’s own nuclear-fuel factory, how are “current trends” looking today?

In His Gut
Allison is particularly worried that North Korea might pass nuclear weapons or material to terrorists. He notes that North Korea has threatened as much, telling American diplomats, “It’s up to you whether we...transfer them.” North Korea’s apparently conditional threat to transfer nuclear material points to Allison’s favored solution, a “grand bargain” in which North Korea (and Iran) would be offered security assurances and economic aid in exchange for nuclear disarmament.

Allison is willing to use sticks as well as carrots. In October of 2006, Allison pointed out that North Korea has brazenly defied successive U.S. demands that it not develop nuclear weapons, not test a missile, and not test a nuclear bomb. Although in each case, President Bush said the additional step would be “intolerable,” after each violation we did nothing. According to Allison, this trail of crossed red lines and empty threats risks turning the United States into a victim of “catastrophic ‘deterrence failure.’”

The answer, says Allison, is a direct and unambiguous warning to Kim Jong Il modeled on President Kennedy’s statements during the Cuban Missile Crisis. As Kennedy warned Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that any nuclear missile launched from Cuba would be regarded as an attack by the Soviet Union, President Bush needs to unambiguously promise retaliation for any nuclear explosion of North Korean origin on American soil. According to Allison, America will only be safe if Kim feels “in his gut” that North Korea will be held directly responsible for nuclear terror — even if the blast results from material passed through a chain of rogue states and only eventually into terrorist hands. On the other hand, if Kim feels as though he can escape detection as the ultimate source of a terrorist nuclear weapon, or if Kim believes that he will not be held directly responsible for his place in a long and complex chain of nuclear proliferation, the path is open to likely nuclear terror on American soil within the next decade.

Bush as Clinton?
A year ago, Allison attacked the president’s North Korea policy as “a striking failure.” The irony is that shortly after Allison’s attack, and to the consternation of conservatives, President Bush did in fact adopt the Democrats’ North Korea policy. And now, within a year, that Democratic policy has failed.

Almost immediately after North Korea’s nuclear test on October 9, 2006, President Bush warned that “the transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States and we would hold North Korea fully accountable.” Having deployed the stick, at the behest of conservative hawks, the president then offered the carrot of economic aid and promises of security in return for disarmament. Skeptics warned that the bargain that eventually emerged from the six-party talks had weak verification provisions and was unlikely to prompt full surrender of North Korea’s existing weapons or fissile material. But at least the Bush administration could point to what seemed like a workable agreement to disable the Yongbyon reactor — thereby cutting off North Korea’s ever-growing supplies of nuclear-weapons fuel.

Numerous observers have pointed out that the Bush administration’s North Korea policy now traces a Democratic line. Recently, Gary Samore, an arms-control official in the Clinton National Security Council, said: “Bush is essentially doing what the Democrats have long advocated. I mean, in essence this current Bush strategy is the Clinton strategy.” A recent analysis in the Washington Post was headlined, “To Reach Pact with N. Korea, Bush Adopted an Approach He Had Criticized.”

Failed Bargain
The problem is that a combination of carrots and sticks has not stopped Kim Jong Il from handing Syria extensive nuclear technology, and perhaps even fissile material. Theoretically, the lure of U.S. economic assistance and security guarantees, combined with the prospect of American anger, should have prevented Kim’s Syrian dalliance. The apparent conditionality of North Korea’s threat (“It’s up to you weather we...transfer them.”) was an implicit promise not to behave badly if we offered Kim a bargain of the sort he has now agreed to.