Anybody who ever watched a saloon brawl knows that the craziest fighter often wins. Not caring about injury to himself, a small framed guy can get much more muscular men to back off.

That was what I was thinking as I chatted with an Associated Press TV cameraman on Friday. He was waiting for North Korea’s United Nations ambassador, Han Song Ryol, to step out of his office. Phone interviews are impossible with Kim Jong Il’s diplomats, so waiting on the street for a brief encounter in the Manhattan cold winter air is the only option.

“Six-party talks is old story. No more,” is what the ambassador finally told the AP. But then again, “We do not ask for bilateral talks.” And also, “The formality of the dialogue is not essential one. The essential one is the U.S. policy – whether it tries to attack us or not. That is the problem, but not the bilateral or multilateral one.” And just before leaving, the adequately fed (unlike most North Koreans) Mr. Han added, “We do not expect any further positive measures from the U.S. side. We have seen already, fully, and we made already decision.”

I’m sure there are experts who are paid to decipher all of this, but while some claim to know what makes Pyongyang tick, the reality is that if any reason guides its maneuvers, it is its need to project an image as the surliest bully in the barroom.

Talking to officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency over the weekend left me with the impression that since they were kicked out they have been as stumped as everyone else. Why did North Korea suddenly declare that it possesses nuclear bombs?

North Korean scientists, trained by the Soviet Union and Maoist China, are aging. But was their wisdom passed to a younger generation? All the ingredients are there, but did they really finalize a bomb assembly? They have enough plutonium for up to eight bombs, but how far did they advance in enriching uranium, which is more exportable and can accelerate bomb production?

Most important: Last week’s declaration was not precipitated by nuclear testing – was it a bluff? Australia’s foreign minister, Alexander Downer, said over the weekend that North Korea has two or three bombs. On the plane back from Europe, Secretary of State Rice said she can’t “judge the motivation” of the Kim regime.

What to do? Military officials admit options for attack are less than promising. Out-of-the-box thinkers might in the future advocate an assassination, the one idea yet to be assessed seriously. But how does one get close enough to Mr. Kim, a man most often described as a recluse?

The New York Times predictably blames President Bush. If only he had not made that “axis of evil” comment, the axis would not be so evil, goes its reasoning. Secretary-General Annan over the weekend was just as predictable. “North Korea could be brought back to the table,” he said in London, urging all to “engage” Pyongyang and resume talks “as quickly as possible.”

There is no evidence, however, that engagement over the last few decades has moved either Kim regime an inch. The usual sticks and carrots don’t work. Just like their idol, the Korean Stalinists care little about, and perhaps even encourage, starvation within their borders.

Producing little else, North Korea proliferates weapons. The most recent discovery is that it exported nuclear feed material to Libya in 2001. This, I am told by the IAEA officials, included a “bonus” how-to nuclear assembly manual, which might have been useless in the case of Libya’s hapless nuclear experts. But has Iran received the same manual?

Last week, Prime Minister Pak Pong Ju sent a holiday message to the Tehran mullahs. “The friendly and cooperative relations between the two countries would invariably grow stronger,” he vowed. It does not take an expert to recognize the resemblance between the Korean No-Dong ballistic missile system and the Iranian Shahab series. Nuclear cooperation is assumed as well. With a track record of sponsoring terrorists, Iran has nevertheless been known to control its proxies, such as Hezbollah. But does North Korea even care who it sells weapons to?

Only one bouncer has the capacity to eject the crazy men out of the barroom, and the Bush administration better push that task to the top of its foreign policy agenda, ahead of such secondary items as mending relations with Europe.

Mr. Avni covers the United Nations for The New York Sun. He can be reached at bavni@nysun.com.