When implemented with consistency and commitment, it has a good chance of inducing north Korea to open up and change. With a counterpart as unpredictable as north Korea, engagement necessarily takes time and patience. And there are bound to be more than a few snags along the way. But we are prepared to wait with patience for the engagement policy to bear fruit. We can afford to wait.
Time is on our side.
Our engagement policy is a reinvention of the U.S. policies toward the old Soviet Union in the name of detente, toward China in the name of engagement. We all know how successful they were, and how long it took them to achieve success. Likewise, our engagement toward the north will be effective when it is sustained over an extended period of time. It should not be swayed by an incident or two. So far, north Korea has not been receptive to our overtures.