If you think Iraq is a foreign-policy mess, just wait until the North Korea crisis.

Saddam Hussein had no effective way of fighting back against the United States. North Korea does, with a million-man army poised north of the demilitarized zone just miles from millions of people in Seoul, South Korea. If there is war, tens of thousands could die.

Unlike Iraq, which most experts agreed was five to seven years away from developing its own nuclear weapons, there is broad agreement that North Korea is only months away.

And the Bush administration’s unilateral proclivities have had real, negative consequences already in trying to deal with this problem.

Until now the administration has done everything it can to minimize the gravity of North Korea’s decision — a publicly announced decision — to begin reprocessing plutonium and develop nuclear weapons as soon as possible. But with the end of the Iraq war and even more evidence that the North is proceeding with its nuclear program, it’s time to take our heads out of the sand and deal with the problem. I don’t mean to say we are going to war against North Korea, but we are heading into a crisis that is potentially more dangerous than anything we have seen in the Mideast.

William J. Perry, secretary of Defense in the Clinton administration, is warning that North Korea is likely to have nuclear weapons material by the end of the year if it continues to reprocess nuclear fuel and that it will inevitably be in a position to transfer that material to terrorists just as it has sold missile technology to nations such as Iran. That could mean a nuclear bomb in an American city, warns Perry.

I’ve known Perry since he was an undersecretary of Defense for research and development in the Carter administration 25 years ago. He is not an alarmist. He is a quiet-spoken mathematician and an expert in military technology. Indeed, he is one of the people most responsible for the high-tech military the United States has used so effectively in recent wars. When he speaks out, as he is now, his words demand attention.

Perry is warning that the Bush administration has not developed an effective strategy to deal with the coming crisis. He recommends “serious negotiations with the North Koreans to determine if there is a way to stop their nuclear program short of war.” But until now the Bushies have refused to negotiate directly with the North and have, at the same time, managed to alienate the South Korean government.

A recent report by a task force at the Council on Foreign Relations recommends a series of steps be taken to deal with the crisis, including restoring an effective and coordinated strategy with South Korea; forming a broader coalition with the nations that surround the North — China, Japan and Russia; entering into direct negotiations with the North; looking to shape an interim agreement as a way of testing the North’s intentions that would include a no-attack U.S. pledge if the North kept its part of the bargain; and drawing up contingency plans if all else should fail.

One major difference between the situation in Iraq and North Korea is that Iraq is surrounded by weak states that could not stand up to Saddam if he developed nuclear weapons. North Korea is surrounded by strong states that can stand up to protect their interests. That’s why foreign-policy experts such as Michael Mandelbaum of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Study have argued that diplomacy has a much better chance of succeeding here than it did with Iraq.

But that assumes an effective diplomatic strategy, and Perry is right to say the administration has yet to come up with one. The Bush administration seems to have such loathing for the North Korean regime that it can’t bring itself to deal with it directly. It is a loathsome regime. But not dealing with it is foolish and counterproductive. It’s time for a serious diplomatic test of the North.