In The Third World War, a thriller by British journalist Humphrey Hawksley, the United States and North Korea angrily break off negotiations on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. When North Korean leader Kim Jong Il then makes a conciliatory offer -- promptly spurned by Washington -- a hard-line general seizes power, denounces Kim for "appeasement" and begins plotting with anti-U.S. Islamic terrorist groups centered in Pakistan. North Korea fires a missile at a U.S. base in Japan, Tokyo retaliates with nuclear weapons, and Pakistan launches simultaneous attacks on India that draw Russia, China and the United States into a global holocaust.

A wildly improbable scenario? Not entirely. It correctly depicts Kim as the lesser of evils in North Korea and sharply underlines what's wrong with American policy toward Pyongyang.

Plans to hold a new round of negotiations with North Korea are stalled because the Bush administration is offering vaguely defined terms for a settlement that ignore the ongoing policy struggle in Pyongyang. This week, a private U.S. delegation is visiting North Korea to discuss its nuclear weapons program. But Bush officials were cool to the visit, saying a six-nation effort is the correct way to pursue negotiations. Protracted diplomatic bargaining now lies ahead, which will determine whether Washington, Pyongyang and their negotiating partners (China, Russia, Japan and South Korea) move toward a settlement or deadlock with incalculable consequences.

Last month, the U.S., South Korea and Japan offered North Korea a proposed security guarantee containing only a broad pledge to maintain the "peace and stability" of the Korean peninsula. Pyongyang, which wants those nations to promise not to attack North Korea or seek regime change, rejected that. Instead, it offered to start negotiations by freezing its plutonium program in exchange for U.S. economic aid, the resumption of oil shipments and its removal from the U.S. list of terrorist states. President Bush, in turn, rejected that offer, insisting that North Korea dismantle, not just freeze, its entire nuclear program before dialogue can begin on other issues. On Tuesday, North Korea fine-tuned its offer, adding a specific pledge to bar nuclear tests, but again stopped short of Bush's precondition.

During my seven visits to North Korea since 1972, I have had increasingly frank exchanges with many officials, often informally over dinner. In contrast with its monolithic image, the country is divided into two camps: hard-liners who favor nuclear weapons and believe reconciling with the U.S. is impossible, and pragmatists ready to dismantle their nuclear weapons program in return for security guarantees, U.S. recognition and economic assistance.

Aid the pragmatists

The United States should help the "good guys" win by abandoning its regime-change hopes and pursuing a verifiable, step-by-step process of dismantling North Korea's nuclear capability, with economic rewards along the way.

Kim Jong Il does not have the absolute control that his late father, Kim Il Sung, had. Therefore, although he sides with the pragmatists, he cannot get hard-liners to go along with a nuclear settlement without tangible benefits and an overall shift in U.S. policy toward coexistence.

One way to help the good guys is to cool down the rhetoric. Bush has said he "loathes" Kim Jong Il and wants to "topple" his dictatorship. But the only way to prevent North Korea from selling bomb-making plutonium to terrorists is to deal with Kim, not threaten him. He is a cunning opportunist, ready to give up his nuclear weapons program if that is the best way to bolster his regime economically and stabilize his power. Policies designed to destabilize his regime will only strengthen the hard-liners. To soften Kim's dictatorship and promote democratization, the U.S. should encourage his current economic reforms though a broad normalization of relations, which would help open up the country.

Both North Korea and the U.S. have relaxed their positions slightly. North Korea made the first move with a little-noticed offer on Aug. 27, now repeated, to put its plutonium stockpile under verifiable controls. Until three months ago, the Bush administration insisted that North Korea dismantle its nuclear-weapons effort all at once as a precondition for dialogue on other issues, including its key demand for a U.S. security guarantee. Then, on his October Asian trip, Bush signaled his readiness to "consider" a six-nation northeast Asian security pledge. However, the administration has yet to resolve internal conflicts over the type of security guarantee.

One step at a time

When talks resume, the United States should agree to a security guarantee that would remain in effect while negotiations proceed and would become permanent only upon the satisfactory conclusion of the step-by-step process. At each step, North Korea would get economic rewards in return for its concessions and steadily increasing U.S. inspection access.

North Korea is not likely to give up its nuclear weapons program until the White House persuades Pyongyang that it is no longer seeking to topple the Kim regime. This was the message conveyed by Jo Sung Ju, American affairs director in the foreign ministry, and three other visiting North Korean officials during a two-day dialogue with six Americans in mid-November in which I participated.

Repeatedly, the North Korean delegates emphasized that "coexistence" is the key to resolving the nuclear crisis. What North Korea wants, they said, is a security guarantee that would not only revoke the threat of a U.S. pre-emptive attack, but also would pledge to "respect the sovereignty" of North Korea by abandoning the often-stated goal of "regime change."

"Why would we need nuclear weapons if we no longer feel threatened?" asked one. "Why would we give up our right to have them if you keep talking about regime change? It's as simple as that."

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Selig S. Harrison, author of Korean Endgame, is director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy.