Kindalateral  

Josh Marshall isn't exactly jumping up and down over the DPRK's concession with respect to multilateral talks. For one thing, they've apparently refused to deal with Japan and Russia:

The rationale for the exclusion, according to the article is that the UN, China, North Korea and the United States were the only signatories to the original 1953 armistice agreement. So Russia and Japan are just not relevant to a new conference that would move beyond the armistice agreement and toward a non-aggression pact - the North Koreans' key, and apparently still operative, demand.

That may work as a rationale. But it doesn't really wash as a reason.

To me the real quirk/insight in Marshall's thinking is the notion that it could be the United States, not North Korea, that wants war here. For all the talk about the DPRK's paranoia, a US strike doesn't seem all that implausible. But for some reason, I've generally seen the North Koreans as having made the first move - they are the ones developing nuclear weapons, they are the ones making demands, etc. - and I think a lot of American probably feel the same way. BigOldGeek, for example, argues in comments below that our symbolic show of force (ie the war in Iraq) is what brought them to the negotiating table. But was it really the North Koreans who were unwilling to negotiate?