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Throughout his presidency, George W. Bush has tried pretty much everything to get North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il to come out of his cage. He has tried to coerce him with economic sanctions and schoolboy bluster — a policy course that ended in 2006, when Kim tested a nuclear weapon, precisely the opposite of the result Bush intended. Since then, the Administration has tried bribery, offering blandishments like free food and fuel oil in hopes that North Korea would stand down its nuclear program. Kim has responded a bit — his nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, which produced the fissile material for the North's estimated eight to 10 nuclear bombs, is being shut down. But Kim has refused to detail, as he had promised to do, other components of his nuclear program, including an alleged uranium-enrichment effort. And it has become clearer that he has continued to sell North Korean nuclear expertise into a buyer's market of rogue states.

Exasperated, the Administration has now unveiled North Korea policy version 3.0. Bush is apparently trying to shame North Korea into complying with its commitments in the so-called six-party talks (with the U.S., China, Russia, Japan and South Korea). In an April 24 presentation in Washington, the Administration produced damning photographic evidence that North Korea was deeply involved in helping Syria build a plutonium nuclear reactor, "basically a copy of Yongbyon," as one Bush official put it.

Last year, on Sept. 6, Israel bombed that project out of existence. Ever since, there had been a cone of silence placed around what happened, with neither Jerusalem nor Washington confirming the operation. In Seoul last March, I pressed a senior South Korean negotiator in the six-party talks for information about the Syrian-North Korean connection. He squirmed a little and said it was his impression that the so-called al-Kibar site was just a "missile factory," not a nuclear facility. That, we know now, was false.

There was a reason for the silence and dissembling: the never-ending struggle over the Bush Administration's North Korea policy. The State Department, led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the U.S. point man for North Korea talks, insist the only sensible path is the one they have been on for the past two years: trying, oh-so-patiently, to reach a deal with Kim that will at least eliminate his regime's plutonium program and the weapons it produced. Everything else, they believe, is a sideshow.

Set against them are the North Korea skeptics, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, who argue that North Korea has no intention of giving up its nukes, no matter what agreements it signs. The most vocal of this group is Bush's former U.N. representative John Bolton, who likens the State Department to a drunk searching for his car keys near a lamppost, even though he knows he left them in the bar. Asked by a passerby why he keeps looking near the lamppost, the drunk replies: "Because the light is better."

The hawks were delighted by the revelations about Syria, hoping that the North will be so angered that Kim will abandon the six-party talks, finally bringing down the curtain on what they believe has been a feckless effort by the State Department. But Administration officials insist they don't expect that to happen. They believe North Korea 3.0 — the "shame on you" policy — may pay off. "I doubt they're walking away," says one diplomat involved in the talks. Yes, they say, North Korea's serial proliferation is a huge problem. That's why getting Pyongyang to stop making plutonium-based nuclear weapons has already been a significant accomplishment.

Consider the North's motivation in helping Syria build a reactor: "Cash," a CIA official told reporters. The North earns hard currency any illicit way it can. The point of diplomacy is to give Kim sufficient incentives — both economic and diplomatic — to get to a point where his regime doesn't need to proliferate to survive. A return to Bush's "strangulation" strategy only increases the incentive for Kim to behave badly, with very little hope that the Pyongyang government will disappear anytime soon.

Dealing with Pyongyang is a maddening, sometimes humiliating process. Hill privately has let it be known that it drives him nuts to be portrayed as aiding and abetting such an odious crowd. But bribing Kim is the only realistic strategy. When the next U.S. Administration takes over in January, it's going to come to the same conclusion — whether the President is named McCain, Obama or Clinton.

• Bill Powell