The Bush administration, surprised by the speed of North Korea´s defiant reopening of the shuttered Yongbyon nuclear facility, intends to refer the matter to the United Nations as part of a policy one official described yesterday as "isolate and contain."

Rejecting direct negotiations as unpalatable and a military strike as presently untenable, the administration expects to seek the censure of North Korea at an emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency governing board in early January, officials said.

They said if Pyongyang still refuses to back down, the matter likely would be referred to the U.N. Security Council, where the administration would try to muster greater pressure on North Korea, particularly from China. U.S. officials are eager to avoid a distracting confrontation with Pyongyang as conflict with Iraq intensifies.

U.S. officials see no simple way to stop the maneuvers of enigmatic North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. On a day when North Korea ordered the expulsion of international inspectors and took steps to refuel a dormant nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, President Bush´s top foreign policy advisers met at the White House to assess Kim´s intentions.

Some senior U.S. intelligence analysts believe Kim intends to build nuclear weapons whether or not the international community offers concessions. The construction of an atomic arsenal, this thinking goes, would offer North Korea stature and leverage that he has long craved.

"It may use the current situation to extract concessions, but there is no reason to doubt that Pyongyang will continue," a senior official familiar with U.S. intelligence assessments said yesterday. CIA analysts also believe North Korea may have stored enough plutonium for one or two bombs more than a decade ago.

The administration is facing increasing political pressure to talk with Kim´s government, which blames the United States for the emerging crisis. Leading Republican and Democratic foreign policy voices in the Senate have called on Bush to open discussions -- a step the administration believes would demonstrate weakness and invite further brinkmanship.

U.S. policymakers and their spokesmen, mindful of Kim´s history of building a sense of crisis to win economic and diplomatic favors, have steadfastly avoided any hint of worry as North Korea has dismantled a 1994 nuclear agreement. Indeed, a high-ranking official yesterday asserted that "no one´s really concerned right now."

Yet many outside experts believe a crisis may be boiling. Specialists throughout the national security apparatus have been studying Kim´s moves and trying to decipher his strategy, consulting with one another and foreign governments. The reclusive leader has many moves he can yet make if his ambition is escalation, officials point out, although each one brings him closer to a potentially devastating miscalculation.

Beyond restarting the Yongbyon nuclear reactor and a facility to extract plutonium from 8,000 spent fuel rods, Kim could carry through with the expulsion of IAEA monitors. He could withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, end a moratorium on missile testing or fire a missile over Japan, as he did in 1999.

To deter him, the administration believes it has few encouraging options.

The White House has rejected direct negotiations until Kim takes steps to halt a recently discovered uranium enrichment program. A lightning military strike would be risky, and almost certainly unpopular in the region. And U.S. efforts to marshal international pressure have so far been unsuccessful.

The heart of the administration´s strategy, announced in June 2001, is a vow not to reward North Korea for provocative behavior, whether a military or nuclear buildup or aggressive moves toward its neighbors. Bush incensed Kim by naming North Korea a member of his "axis of evil," but the president said he would extend economic and diplomatic cooperation if convinced that Kim was playing fair.

Bush wanted to see progress on a range of issues, from limits on missile sales to a pullback of North Korean troops from its border with South Korea. Steps would be reciprocal and verifiable. Without concrete progress, there would be no U.S. concessions.

"The approach comes from years of being burned," a U.S. official once explained.

"When North Korea confirmed to U.S. envoys in October that it had been working secretly to enrich uranium in violation of a 1994 pledge to halt its nuclear program, the administration demanded to no avail that Pyongyang stop the project. The Americans and their allies halted promised fuel oil shipments in retaliation, angering the North Koreans.

The Kim government blasted the IAEA, whose authority it disdains. Then, last weekend, North Korean workers began removing seals and covering cameras used by the IAEA to make sure the Yongbyon facility, with its reactor and stored fuel remained shuttered. The IAEA, a U.N. organization, accused North Korea of dangerous brinkmanship.

For now, the administration has been pressing foreign governments to lean on Pyongyang and warn Kim that continued defiance will further isolate his regime and worsen the country´s economic misery.

Analysts are divided about Kim´s ambitions, debating whether the moves at Yongbyon are primarily a scripted drama designed to win concessions or a determined effort to produce plutonium and a nuclear arsenal. One view is that it may be both, with Kim having the option to stop or continue as events dictate.

Korea specialist Don Oberdorfer believes North Korea may have been willing to engage as recently as November, but in response to the Bush administration´s tough stance has started on a series of actions that are developing a momentum of their own.

"All indications are that they are moving rapidly to produce a nuclear weapon," Oberdorfer said. Joel Wit, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, agreed, saying that "it may be too late to stop what´s going on in North Korea."

"It´s still possible this is some sort of negotiating tactic," said Wit, a former Clinton administration official, "but the weight of evidence is that they may have decided to start building up their nuclear weapons stockpile."

The administration has itself partly to blame for North Korea´s behavior, said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. He said of U.S. officials, "When they say they have no good options, they´re continuing a policy of neglect that´s worsening a bad situation."

As Kim acts in precisely the provocative way the Bush administration abhors, the unsolved riddle for the White House is how to make him change.

"There´s no doubt in anyone´s mind that this goes to the Security Council," an administration official said yesterday. "The question is one of timing: Can the Security Council handle North Korea and Iraq at the same time?" (© 2002 The Washington Post Company 12/28/02)