Thus it is only North Korea that can even lend the thin veneer of an argument to this cause so dear to the hearts and minds of those in the Republican administration that temperamentally find it hard to live without a military crusade. And they have behind them the might of the powerful lobby of the US arms industry for which a project of this magnitude promises profits and jobs for decades to come.
In June last year South Korea's peace-minded president, Kim Dae-jung, travelled North to meet his counterpart, Kim Jong-il, in what was by any stretch of the imagination a historic summit. It has set the ball rolling on rapprochement between the two halves of the peninsular, making all manner of difficulties for US foreign policy at large in eastern Asia. A counterpart to Korean pride at the summit's achievements has been a rise in anti-American sentiment in the South. No longer confined to left wing students, mainstream opinion is beginning to wonder about the value of a continued American military presence.
But the ripples run further out that this. Japan that has for long stood four square behind the American military presence in East Asia is now beginning to ask, if there is no longer a need to deter a North Korean attack then is it necessary to have such a large American military presence in Japan? If the sole remaining argument is to balance China, this is, in many influential Japanese eyes, quite counterproductive, working to turn China into the enemy it is not. All along, moreover, the Japanese have held profound reservations about American arguments for missile defense, convinced it will unnecessarily antagonize China.
This brings us to the nub of the argument. China has been an essential interlocutor in persuading Kim Jong il to drop his country's traditional hostile policy to the West. The road to Pyongyang runs, at least for some its length, through Beijing. Washington should expect to be charged a toll, and that for China is an end to America's affair with missile defense.
For Cheney and Rumsfeld, who see missile defense as the cutting edge of a new distinct Republican foreign policy, it must seem as if the growing moves towards peace in the Korean peninsular could end up pulling the rug from underneath them. Distrustful anyway of the North's good intentions and tending to believe that Carter, Clinton and South Korea have been duped, it should come as no surprise they are out to sabotage the peace process.
Only one person stands between them and the ear of the president: Secretary of State Colin Powell. The outcome of this potentially deadly dual in the higher echelons of the US government will probably determine whether we have peace in our time in East Asia or not.
Jonathan Power is a freelance columnist based in London.
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