For Vice President Dick Cheney, the question of how to deal with would-be nuclear powers in Iran and North Korea is disarmingly simple.

"We don't negotiate with evil; we defeat it,'' Cheney reportedly pronounced, dismissing a State Department bid in late 2003 to make a deal with North Korea. A similar prescription was offered when moderates in the Iranian regime made a secret approach that year to begin talks with the United States.

The long history of the Cold War is replete with the issue of whether -- and how -- to talk with a mortal foe. U.S.-Soviet relations froze time and again. For two decades, there was no dialogue at all with Communist China. But in the end, American policymakers have always chosen the path of negotiation.

For Cheney -- and for President George W. Bush -- sitting down at a table with the likes of North Korea's Kim Jong Il would be an act of weakness, a lessening of American power and prestige that granted undeserved legitimacy to despised regimes.

In recent months, and most prominently last week, the Bush administration has appeared to reverse its stance, opening the door to direct talks with North Korea and Iran.

These moves are carefully constrained, reflecting in part the ongoing divisions in the Bush administration about the advisability of going down this path. Contacts with both regimes will take place only within the framework of multilateral talks and focused solely on the issue of their nuclear programs. One-on-one talks on a broader agenda, including establishing basic diplomatic relations, have been explicitly ruled out, for now.

The decision to talk seems driven in large part by the realization that defeating evil has proven to be more difficult than some in the administration assumed. After Iraq, the use of military force against Iran -- and even more so against a North Korea already probably armed with nuclear weapons -- is highly unlikely. Potential allies in imposing economic and political sanctions -- the Europeans, Russians and Chinese, along with South Korea and Japan -- won't even consider such steps without a greater show of American willingness to negotiate with the evil enemy.

Limited as it is, the significance of this shift has to be seen against the backdrop of deep resistance to such diplomatic engagement in the Bush administration.

"There is a fundamental disagreement over how to approach the North Korea problem,'' explained Richard Armitage, who served as deputy secretary of state from 2001-05.

"'Those of us at the State Department concluded: From the North Korean point of view, the nuclear issue is the only reason we Americans talk with them,'' Armitage recounted in a recent interview with the Oriental Economist newsletter. "Therefore, the North Koreans would be very reluctant to let go of the nuclear program. We knew it was going to be a very difficult process. But you have to start somewhere. You start by finding out what their needs and desires are, and seeing if there is a way of meeting those needs and desires without giving away something that is sacred to us.''

But the White House and others in the administration blocked at every turn their attempts to open direct dialogue with Pyongyang. "There is a fear in some quarters, particularly the Pentagon and at times in the vice president's office, that if we were to engage in discussions with the North Koreans, we might wind up with the bad end of the deal,'' Armitage said. "They believe that we should be able to pronounce our view, and everyone else, including the North Koreans, should simply accept it. This is not a reasonable approach.''

Six-party talks

The compromise was the decision, through the good offices of China, to convene six-party talks that included surrounding countries such as Russia, South Korea and Japan. Administration officials have argued that this format rallies others to back the United States in pressing the North Koreans, effectively isolating them.

The same argument was made for the United States to support, but not directly join, until this past week, European negotiations with Iran. As recently as April, Bush was still publicly wedded to this logic.

"With the United States being the sole interlocutor between Iran, it makes it more difficult to achieve the objective of having the Iranians give up their nuclear weapons ambitions,'' Bush said in answering questions following an April 10 speech. "It's amazing that when we're in a bilateral position, or kind of just negotiating one on one, somehow the world ends up turning the tables on us.''

Arguably, however, the opposite has been true. In the case of Iran, the Europeans, including Great Britain, have consistently urged the United States to talk directly to Iran.

An excuse not to talk

All the other partners in the six-party talks, including the closest U.S. ally, Japan, have held their own direct talks with Pyongyang and pushed the United States to do the same. Ultimately, it is the United States that has found itself isolated.

North Korean experts in the State Department had warned against relying only on this approach.

"In the case of negotiating with North Korea, more is not merrier and certainly not more efficient,'' says Robert Carlin, a longtime CIA and State Department intelligence expert on North Korea who participated in virtually all negotiations with the North from 1993-2000. "The more parties and people at the table, the greater the likelihood of posturing, and the harder it is to make concessions.''

In his view, the insistence on a multilateral approach was initially an excuse not to talk. "They didn't want bilateral talks with Pyongyang and they certainly didn't trust the State Department to conduct any such thing.''

These divisions have persisted. Last September, with the backing of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the State Department's chief negotiator was finally allowed to meet his North Korean counterpart. This led to an agreement in the six-party talks last September, a compromise that conceded in principle the North Korean right to have a nuclear power reactor.

That deal prompted a backlash from Cheney and others, according to senior officials within the administration, and fresh curbs on direct contacts with Pyongyang. But the new proposal to Iran apparently also includes an offer to supply power reactors.

What still has resonance is the belief that direct talks with North Korea and Iran amount to acceptance of the regimes in power in both countries.

Resistant to deal

"Ultimately the president is, on this issue, very, very resistant to the idea of doing a deal, even a deal that would solve the nuclear problem,'' Flynt Leverett, who dealt with Iran for the Bush National Security Council, said in a recent interview. "You don't do a deal that would effectively legitimate this regime that he considers fundamentally illegitimate.''

The administration may calculate that this offer of talks will only serve to isolate Iran and shore up ties with Europe. But it may have stepped onto a slippery slope toward a bargain that will necessarily involve painful concessions to Iran and lead toward a resumption of diplomatic relations broken off almost three decades ago.

Opposition to negotiating with the enemy is deeply embedded in the Bush administration. There is, however, a precedent for a sea change -- Ronald Reagan. President Reagan came to office in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the American boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Dialogue with the Soviets was halted and the staff of the Reagan National Security Council opposed any contacts with Moscow.

Reagan himself, in a famous 1983 speech, referred to the Soviet Union as an ``evil empire,'' followed two weeks later by the launching of the "star wars'' missile-defense program. Soviet leaders, we learned later, were convinced that the United States might launch a first strike. In August of that year, Soviet fighter aircraft shot down a Korean Airlines passenger jet that had strayed from its flight path, a sign of sharply increasing tension.

In the Reagan administration, against fierce internal opposition, Secretary of State George Shultz pushed to resume dialogue with the Soviets, beginning with achievable steps such as resuming grain sales. Reagan ultimately agreed, starting down a road that led to the series of dramatic summits from 1985 with incoming Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Reagan's willingness to sit down with the "evil'' foe flowed from a sense of conviction in American strength. It is not yet evident that his Republican successor shares the same sense of confidence.

The nuclear regime in place since the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) took effect in 1970 is broken and needs to be fixed, the world's highest-ranking nuclear official told a half-full Memorial Auditorium in a wide-ranging lecture about the future of nuclear energy and weapons yesterday afternoon.

"We have a dysfunctional system -- system that cannot endure," said Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). "We're reaching the fork in the road. Events in the last few years have made it clear that we need to change course."

The big news from ElBaradei's speech was his support for American entreaties to Iran. But the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize recipient also commented on North Korea, India, Pakistan, Iraq, terrorism, disarmament and the future of nuclear energy.

He said there are probably eight current nuclear states, excluding North Korea. He worried aloud that countries which can currently produce nuclear energy peacefully are only six months away from developing nuclear weapons for military purposes.

"Acquiring the technology to enrich uranium or reprocess uranium basically is the key to develop nuclear weapons as we have seen in Asia and Iran," he said. "They are virtually weapons states because in six months time if they decide for security reasons to develop their own weapon, they are there."

Iraq

While not a household name, ElBaradei was a prominent figure in the news as the lead weapons inspector in Iraq during the run-up to the 2003 American invasion. He said at the time that he could not find evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, but he would not conclude that there were no weapons in the country or that Saddam Hussein did not have a program.

ElBaradei asked for more time to complete inspections, but the Bush administration declined his request and decided to invade. The U.S. never found the nuclear and biological material that some had promised existed.

"Luckily...well I'm not sure luckily...we were proven right that there was no nuclear or any weapon of mass destruction in Iraq," he said. "But I hope that all of us have learned from the Iraq experience that we cannot just jump the gun. You have to be absolutely sure of the facts."

India

ElBaradei surprised observers when he supported the U.S. agreement with India earlier this year, which allowed the country to continue developing nuclear weapons and energy. He said the agreement with India did not endorse its proliferation activities but was indicative of the kind of outside-the-box thinking the international community needs when considering the spread of nuclear weapons and material.

"The end result is India coming closer and working with the rest of the world," he said. "It is not a perfect agreement, but it has a lot of advantages. From the safety, security and nonproliferation perspective, I see that agreement as a win-win situation."

Pakistan

Pakistan developed nuclear weapons as a response to India. Some have criticized Pakistan for its poor stewardship and control of the bomb, pointing out that weapons were almost fired during a skirmish over the disputed Kashmir region.

AQ Kahn, a senior nuclear scientist who helped Pakistan join the exclusive nuclear club, was caught selling compact discs and other information about bombs to several other countries.

"How much damage was done in the process we don't know," ElBaradei said.

The release of this nuclear material demonstrates the need for a "more robust verification system," he said, adding that Pakistan has come closer to the international community in recent years.

North Korea

Kim Jong Il expelled all IAEA inspectors in Dec. 2002, withdrew from the NPT in Jan. 2003 and announced in February 2005 that his military had a nuclear deterrent.

"North Korea is still a major problem," ElBaradei said. "We don't talk about it enough, but North Korea is declaring right now that they have a nuclear weapon. And the longer that they continue to be in that status, the more it is accepted in the collective conscious. This would be terrible because it will have a lot of negative ramifications in South Korea and Japan."

ElBaradei said ongoing negotiations are an important development but more needs to be done.

"What we see with the current six-party talks should have taken place years ago," he said.

Nuclear Proliferation

ElBaradei stressed that he understands the value of nuclear power, which produces much of the developed world's energy. Reducing its use would create more dependence on greenhouse gas-creating fossil fuels, he said.

"We need to use nuclear energy responsibly to maximize benefit and minimize risk," he said.

He said his "number one nightmare scenario" is a terrorist group acquiring nuclear technology since terrorists are not deterred by the possibility of reprisal.

In the post-Cold War world, ElBaradei said he could see no justification for the U.S. and Russia to maintain their nuclear arsenals on ready alert to fire with thirty minutes notice. He called on America to lead by example and continue to disarm its nuclear stockpile.

"Rather than pass judgment, I'd definitely like to say the U.S. should do more in leading by example in terms of nuclear disarmament," he said.

In September 2005, ElBaradei was reappointed to a third term as director general of IAEA. The United States had considered holding up his nomination but dropped its objections under pressure from European allies, who admire the former law professor from New York University.

Diplomat to the Core

The Egyptian native's sometimes broken English was interspersed with self-corrections and careful legalese nuance. ElBaradei answered questions posed by Political Science Prof. Scott Sagan, the director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation.

When Sagan made bold pronouncements about different country's nuclear activities, including the United States' "colossal failure" when North Korea violated the NPT, ElBaradei seemed careful not to point fingers, play the blame game or make enemies. Nonetheless, for a senior United Nations official, his speech was notably blunt.

"There's no international public servant whose integrity and work I admire more than yours," Sagan told ElBaradei.

Accompanied by his wife, ElBaradei spent the day at the University visiting with faculty and students. He spoke at a lunch sponsored by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and traveled to Sagan's home for a dinner with invited guests. He left the area at 8:30 p.m.

Stanford, California - If the deal to supply India with nuclear technologies goes through, future generations may remember it for quite different reasons than the debate over nuclear proliferation.

Nuclear power emits no carbon dioxide, the leading cause of global warming. And India, like most developing countries, has not been anxious to spend money to control its emissions of this and other so- called greenhouse gases.

India is embracing nuclear power for other reasons - because it can help the country solve its chronic failure to supply the electricity needed for a burgeoning economy. But in effect, the deal would marry their interest in power with ours in protecting the planet.

India is growing rapidly. In recent years its economy has swelled at more than 7 percent per year, and many analysts believe it is poised to grow even faster in the coming decade.

The economic growth is feeding a voracious appetite for electricity that India's bankrupt utilities are unable to satisfy. Blackouts are commonplace. Farmers, who account for about two-fifths of all the power consumed, can barely rely on getting power for half of every day. In industrial zones, the lifeblood of India's vibrant economy, unstable power supplies are such trouble that the biggest companies usually build their own power plants.

So most analysts expect that the demand for electricity will rise at about 10 percent a year. (For comparison, U.S. power demand notches up at just 2 percent annually.)

Over the past decade, about one third of India's new power supplies came from natural gas and hydro electricity. Both those sources have been good news for global warming - natural gas is the least carbon- intensive of all the fossil fuels, and most of India's hydroelectric dams probably emit almost no greenhouse gases.

However, the bloom is coming off those greenhouse-friendly roses. New supplies of natural gas cost about twice what Indians are used to paying, and environmental objections are likely to scupper the government's grand plans for new hydro dams.

That leaves coal - the most carbon-intensive of all fossil fuels. Already more than half of India's new power supplies come from coal, and that could grow rapidly.

Traditionally, the coal sector was plagued by inefficiencies. State coal mines were notoriously dangerous and inefficient. Coal-fired plants in western provinces, far from the coal fields and vulnerable to the dysfunctional rail network, often came within days of shutting operations due to lack of coal.

All that is changing. Private and highly efficient coal mines are grabbing growing shares of the coal market. Upgrades to the nation's high-tension power grid is making it feasible to generate electricity with new plants installed right at the coal mines.

These improvements make coal the fuel to beat.

So the deal struck with President George W. Bush matters. At the moment, India has just 3 gigawatts of nuclear plants connected to the grid. Government planners envision that nuclear supply will grow to 30 GW over the next generation, but that will remain a fantasy without access to advanced nuclear technologies and, especially, nuclear fuels - such as those offered under the deal with the Bush administration.

By 2020, even after discounting for the government's normal exuberance in its forecasts, a fresh start for nuclear power could increase nuclear generating capacity nearly ten-fold.

By displacing coal, that would avoid about 130 million tons of carbon dioxide per year (for comparison, the full range of emission cuts planned by the European Union under the Kyoto Protocol will total just 200 million tons per year).

The effort, if successful, would eclipse the scheme under the Kyoto Protocol, known as the Clean Development Mechanism, that was designed to reward developing countries that implement projects to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases. The largest 100 of these CDM projects, in total, won't reduce emissions as much as a successful effort to help India embrace safe nuclear power.

The benefits in slowing global warming are not enough to make the deal a winner. Care is needed to tame the risks of proliferation, especially those connected from India's system of breeder reactors that make more weapons-capable fuel than they consume. And complementary efforts, led by Indians, are needed to fix the trouble in India's electricity sector that have so far discouraged private investors.

None of this will be easy. There are no silver bullets in cooling the greenhouse.

What is important is that the deal is not just a one-off venture, as the administration's backers, on the defensive, have suggested. It could frame a new approach to technology sharing and managing a more proliferation proof fuel cycle that, in turn, will multiply the benefits of a cooler climate.

Coal-rich China is among the many other countries that would welcome more nuclear power and whose emissions of carbon dioxide are growing fast - even faster than India's.

Quite accidentally, it seems, the Bush administration has stumbled on part of an effective strategy to slow global warming. Now it should marry that clever scheme overseas with an effective plan here at home.

The nuclear deal reached during President Bush's recent visit to India unleashed a predictable wave of criticism. From editorial and op-ed pages to Congress, led by the left but supported on the right, the administration has been assailed for making a bad bargain.

Under the agreement, which still needs congressional approval, India would open much of its nuclear facilities to international inspections in return for gaining access to the world's supplies of uranium and U.S. nuclear expertise.

The attacks on the deal reflect the view of the nonproliferation lobby -- the experts and policymakers whose central concern is to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. I share their aim. But American arguments against the India deal are misleading and only expose the deep contradictions, if not hypocrisy, of our own nuclear policies.

There are two main criticisms of the agreement: first, it undermines the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the NPT, and second, it permits, even encourages, India to expand its nuclear weapons production.

The NPT issue is particularly sensitive at a time when the international community is trying to persuade Iran to give up certain nuclear technologies which many nations fear are part of a secret bomb program.

The NPT created two sets of global rules -- one for the five nuclear weapons powers it recognizes (China, the United States, Russia, Britain and France) and another for everyone else. The five, for example, allow only "voluntary'' international safeguards on their civilian nuclear facilities. They have no obligation to open their military programs to any kind of scrutiny. And the NPT places no real limits on their arsenals, other than a vague commitment to reduce and eventually eliminate all nuclear weapons.

The rest must open their nuclear energy programs fully to international inspection and agree never to build bombs. In exchange, they gain access to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

Iran -- and North Korea -- made that bargain and can be held to account for breaking the rules. But India consistently regarded that as an unequal trade-off and never signed the NPT; neither did Pakistan and Israel, two other nuclear weapons states.

India's nuclear program is the product of decades of largely indigenous effort; it did not result from secretive proliferation in violation of the NPT.

The deal with India turns the five into six. It treats India as a de facto member of the inner club. The deal would require changes in U.S. law to remove existing restrictions on the transfer of nuclear energy technology, changes that would allow India to be treated no differently from China.

That does not weaken the NPT -- it strengthens it. It brings it more into accord with reality and gives India a stake in a system it had previously rejected as unfair. It paves the way for India to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the international organization that controls nuclear exports.

The critics are right that the deal enables India to expand its production of fissile materials to make nuclear warheads. Eight of India's 22 power reactors will remain outside international controls, along with a new breeder reactor. The Indians fought for that exemption because they feel their nuclear arsenal may not be large enough to deter a nuclear first strike by Pakistan or China in the future. Critics fear that with increased access to uranium and limited inspections, India will set off an arms race in South Asia.

Again, the agreement simply treats India like the five. Nonproliferation experts claim that unlike India, however, the five have halted their production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium that could be used to build new weapons. This is true, but misleading.

The five have massive stockpiles of fissile material built up during the Cold War. "If I've got a full pantry, it's easy for me to swear off trips to the supermarket,'' said Michael Levi, an arms-control expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Moreover, the United States has embarked on a new program to rebuild its nuclear weapons production capability, including creating new facilities to produce plutonium cores for warheads and to assemble them.

India has agreed to back a global pact to cut off fissile-material production. But the Bush administration does not support a treaty that would actually verify this is taking place. And the U.S. Senate has refused to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that would permanently halt any new testing of nuclear weapons.

A Congress that can support those policies is hardly in a position to challenge the administration's agreement with India. Rather than block the U.S.-India deal, it makes more sense to improve it. This could include reaching agreements for cooperation between the two countries to ensure the safety and security of nuclear facilities, including those for military purposes, suggested Stanford Professor Scott D. Sagan, a leading expert on nuclear safety and nonproliferation. "Reducing the risk of terrorist theft of nuclear materials or weapons in India would also help protect the United States,'' argues Sagan.

Beyond that, the six acknowledged nuclear powers should begin to seriously fulfill their part of the NPT bargain -- to cap fissile-material production, to ban nuclear testing, and to eventually radically reduce stored arsenals of nuclear weapons and materials.