The Axis regime in North Korea seems to have attached a condition to its agreement over the weekend that it would participate in multi-party talks with America, China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan. It doesn’t want to deal with the American state undersecretary, John Bolton. While on a visit to South Korea, he earned Pyongyang’s ire by referring to the North Korea’s Kim Jong Il as a “tyrannical dictator” and by asserting that “life is a hellish nightmare” for many North Koreans. This is an accurate appraisal of a man who uses starvation as a weapon of mass political terror, and it is an accurate description of life for those who are Mr. Kim’s victims. Mr. Bolton’s comments led a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman to say that, “Such human scum and bloodsucker is not entitled to take part in the talks,” according to the North’s official KCNA news agency.

All this gives reason for pause: Exactly when did the world’s only superpower get to the point where it is requesting that a crackpot dictator such as Kim Jong Il en ter into talks? While it was certainly smart of the Bush administration to have refused to entertain the idea of the one-on-one talks that Mr. Kim wanted, America ought not be the party offering, in conjunction with China, six-way negotiations. Better North Korea should beg an audience with America, on terms of our choosing.

Such a state of affairs would exist if the North Koreans were convinced of America’s resolve to deal with the nuclear threat — militarily if necessary. However, from the Clinton administration to today, the North Koreans have seemed to be more under the impression that they can extort economic aid from the developed world in exchange for promises, however hollow, that the dictatorship will cease in its quest to build weapons of mass destruction.

Earlier this year President Clinton claimed that his White House had devised plans for a strike on North Korea’s nuclear facilities, but it didn’t happen. The best signal the administration could send after the fracas of the weekend is to put Mr. Bolton in charge of any talks with the North Koreans.