While a U.S.-led coalition fights to topple Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, a dangerous foreign-policy crisis is brewing on the Korean Peninsula. Last fall, Kim Jong Il resumed North Korea's program to develop nuclear weapons, in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a 1994 agreement with the United States to freeze the program in exchange for food and energy assistance. The Bush administration rejects North Korea's call for bilateral negotiations to resolve the crisis as caving in to “nuclear blackmail” and insists on including other regional powers. Administration critics say that ignoring North Korea — which may have enough material to build at least one nuclear weapon and could soon produce many more — is a recipe for war.

Mary H. Cooper specializes in environmental, energy and defense issues. Before joining CQ Researcher as a staff writer in 1983, she was a reporter and Washington correspondent for the Rome daily newspaper l'Unita. She is the author of The Business of Drugs (CQ Press, 1990). She also is a contract translator-interpreter for the U.S. State Department. Cooper graduated from Hollins College in English.

The CQ Researcher Full Service