It is also not the time for more unilateral American sanctions, intemperate rhetoric or anything else administration hawks might cook up to scuttle the talks.

But the idea of a quarantine has attracted the most interest, especially among administration hawks who never liked the idea of negotiations with North Korea.

Yet he agrees with the traditionalists that the administration hawks fail to understand the dangers of overheated rhetoric and the real value in arms-control diplomacy.

The letter itself was highly classified, but its contents were reported over the weekend by The Weekly Standard, a journal with close ties to administration hawks.

But only if administration hawks make an admission of their own: that working through the United Nations could get them everything they profess to want.

And administration hawks will again consider a military strike on Yongbyon, even though that would risk another Korean War.

Some diplomats liked the idea, but administration hawks rejected it at once.

Further, there is a perception that the same administration hawks who pushed the war against Iraq would like to turn their sights on Syria.

What that also represented, some in the administration acknowledged, was a White House move to restrain administration hawks for now.