PAT PICKS HIS POISON
Pat Buchanan says he cannot promise to endorse the Republican presidential nominee because the GOP "has become a Xerox copy, basically, of the Democratic Party." Buchanan has a point here: Neither party is willing to tank the world economy as he would have them do. (In his book The Great Betrayal, Buchanan proposes slapping a 15 percent tariff on imports from every country in the world except possibly Canada. For a review, see http://www.TheAmericanEnterprise.org/taeja98f.htm.) But it's not as though Republican support for free trade and internationalism is some new development; the party hasn't been isolationist since at least the Forties.

The most obvious drawback of a Reform Party bid by Buchanan, that he could tilt the elections to the Democrats, has been much discussed. (Click HERE for NR's take, from our latest issue.) But it's worth considering the less likely result-that the polls hold and the Republicans end up winning the White House without the Buchanan Brigades — which would also be disastrous for conservatives. The conventional wisdom among press and Republican-party elite alike would be that Republicans could dispense with conservatives altogether. The president-elect would neither owe nor fear conservatives very much.

Almost any way you look at it, the conclusion is the same: If Buchanan runs, he will hurt every cause he has ever fought for or claims to believe in.

COERCIVE DIPLOMACY
Reports out of Berlin, where five days of discussions between the U.S. and North Korea recently concluded, suggest that Pyongyang won't test the Taepo Dong-2 (a long-range missile that could carry a significant payload as far as Alaska and Hawaii or a lighter one all the way to the contiguous 48 states). In return, the United States will move toward normalized relations and the eventual end of economic sanctions.

The deal solves an immediate problem. Ever since North Korea tested the Taepo Dong-1 last year, actually blasting it over Japanese airspace, there have been concerns about triggering an east Asian arms race that might pull in China and Taiwan. All summer, security experts have considered a test shot for Taepo Dong-2 imminent. "Most analysts believe that North Korea probably will test a Taepo Dong-2 this year, unless delayed for political reasons," notes the unclassified version of the 1999 National Intelligence Estimate, released last week.

Now the North Koreans have their political reason, but they're also behaving exactly the way the NIE predicts they will: Pyongyang will view its long-range missiles "more as strategic weapons of deterrence and coercive diplomacy than as weapons of war." Coercive diplomacy is exactly what produced this deal: specifically, their coercion and our diplomacy. How long can it last?

SPEAKING OF NUKES. . .
A coalition of leftie outfits seeking ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is planning a "National Day of Action" tomorrow. They will be demonstrating on the Capitol Steps wearing masks of North Carolina senator Jesse Helms for "his flagrant disrespect for democracy" in not holding a vote on the treaty. (The quote comes from a fax from Peace Action, formerly known as Sane/Freeze-presumably they realize that the "sane" part of their title didn't pass the truth-in-advertising test.) A quick canvas of the Senate suggests that most Republicans are holding firm against the treaty, another in a long line of Clinton-era initiatives that presume that rogue states everywhere will rush to follow our pacific example. If the Senate votes, Peace Action might not get the result it wants. Supporters of a strong defense, meanwhile, should collect the group's masks of Helms-and wear them as a badge of honor.