North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il drove his country deep into starvation and isolation while stockpiling cognac and fine foods for himself and his friends. He also threatened the world with a growing nuclear arsenal.

He won’t be missed.

Now Kim’s youngest son, Kim Jong-un, a 20-something cipher with no military experience and a four-star general’s rank, steps onto the stage.

There’s speculation that the untested Kim will provoke a crisis to prove his chops and rally the military around his fledgling regime. On Monday, North Korea test-fired two short-range missiles off its east coast, just as it announced the elder Kim’s death. Probably not a coincidence.

Kim’s death offers a prime diplomatic opportunity for the United States to push a key goal: Persuade North Korea to relinquish its nuclear arsenal.

The U.S. reportedly has agreed to provide up to 240,000 tons of food aid to North Korea in exchange for a pledge from the North to suspend its uranium enrichment program and allow international inspectors to return to Yongbyon to monitor both its enrichment plant and nuclear reactor. That would be a smart deal for Washington and the world ― if Pyongyang delivers on its end.

North Korea has enough nuclear fuel for four to eight bombs, all from reprocessed plutonium. Uranium enrichment would give Pyongyang a second path to creating nuclear material and, presumably, more bombs. Freezing that program now is vital.

Negotiations to finalize a deal were expected to be announced this week, Leon Sigal, director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project, tells us. Now all bets could be off.

The U.S. should press to make this deal now. Don’t let up. Tell the new North Korean leader that our diplomatic agenda has not changed ― and will not change. The aim remains: Persuade the North to relinquish its weapons and, just as significantly, stop exporting its nuclear know-how to other rogue proliferators, such as Iran.

The U.S. and its allies should remind the new leader that the West has plenty of ways short of military action to bring more pressure on Pyongyang. That list of potential pressure moves includes U.S.-led financial sanctions against North Korean banking and trade, to cripple what’s left of Pyongyang’s economy. That should worry the younger Kim, particularly if he has his father’s taste for imports of fine food and liquors.

North Korea ― one critic calls it “the world’s largest outdoor prison camp” ― is opaque to outsiders. No one in the West knows if the transfer of power from father to son will take hold. Or whether other, more seasoned leaders will sideline the young Jong-un as a figurehead.

If Kim is willing to follow his father’s lead and make the nuclear deal, if he allows international inspectors to ensure that his country is fulfilling its end of the bargain, that will be an important step. It will signal not only that the new leader has a confident grasp on power ― and the backing of the country’s military ― but that he is willing to negotiate away at least some of his country’s nuclear ambitions if, from North Korea’s viewpoint, the price is right.

Trading nukes for food would be a stark measure of the deep desperation and misery of millions of North Koreans. That’s Kim Jong-il’s disgraceful legacy.

Maybe, unlike his father, the younger Kim might care that his people are starving.

What a welcome change that would be.

(Chicago Tribune )

(MCT Information Services)