The Bush Administration is to be commended for completing a deal with North Korea that persuaded it to disclose details of its nuclear power and weapons capabilities. But, had George W.Bush been willing to negotiate six years earlier, the United States and its partners would have got a better deal, and the world would be more secure.

In the northern summer of 2002, long before North Korea had the bargaining chip of having tested a nuclear device, the Bush Administration had a chance to strike a deal. At that time North Korea took a series of steps that signalled a strong willingness to forgo its nuclear program. In July it sought a meeting between its foreign minister, Paek Nam-sun, and then US secretary of state Colin Powell this would have been the highest-level contact between the two nations since Bushtook office.

Concurrently, North Korea enacted a series of economic and market reforms, restored high-level talks with Japan, proposed high-level talks with South Korea, and began de-mining large portions of the demilitarised zone. Such steps were the most promising prospect of rapprochement between the North, its Asian neighbours and the US since the armistice of 1953.

Riding high on the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and in the midst of planning the invasion of Iraq, Bush refused to allow the Paek-Powell meeting. Bush called Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader, a ''pygmy'' and a ''spoiled child at a dinner table''.

Increasingly isolated through the spurning of its overtures, North Korea acknowledged the existence of its highly enriched uranium program in October 2002, and offered a non-aggression pact with the US, which it rejected immediately. To punish North Korea, the Bush Administration ended the annual shipment of 500,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil to the country, cut off fuel shipments and hardened its diplomatic stance.

North Korea responded by announcing that it would reopen its Yongbyon plutonium processing facility. In December 2002 it announced its intention to reopen its reprocessing plant and expelled International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors. In January 2003 it announced its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US paid little attention to nuclear developments in North Korea until it tested its first nuclear device near the city of Kilchu in October 2006. In the interim, it had acquired from six to 10 nuclear weapons, advanced its uranium enrichment program and exported an unknown amount of nuclear material and expertise.

Despite the lacklustre yield of the 2006 explosion, North Korea had entered the nuclear club. Only after the test did the Bush Administration begin to negotiate seriously with North Korea. A meeting in 2007 reached an agreement to shut down and seal the Yongbyon nuclear facility (and reprocessing plant) and allow IAEA personnel to conduct all necessary monitoring and inspections. However, North Korea had the bomb and the damage was done. Had the Bush Administration responded to its overtures before its 2006 test, it is likely that it would have had a better agreement, and the US would have been negotiating from a position of strength.

The US should learn from these lessons as it deals with Iran's nuclear program. As Israeli military leader and politician Moshe Dayan once said, ''If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends, you talk to your enemies.'' It is past the time for the Bush Administration to heed this advice so that it does not have to settle for a poor deal with Iran as well. Guardian

Lawrence Korb is a senior fellow and Sean Duggan is a research associate at the Centre for American Progress.