This is not to say we shouldn't take North Korean bluster seriously--it is very serious indeed. But it does go a good way toward explaining how ineffective Obama's approach to the basket-case nation really is.
Here's what Krauthammer had to say:
What I think is remarkable is that even though over the last 16 years in the Clinton and the Bush administrations we did not succeed in stopping, although we slightly slowed the nuclear program, look what's happened in the six months of the quote, unquote, "smart diplomacy" of the Obama administration?Long-range missile tests, the explosion of a nuclear weapon probably a third the size of Hiroshima, the declaration that the plutonium the Bush administration had frozen will be weaponized entirely, the entire stock, and the declaration that the uranium program which the Bush administration talked about, which Democrats had said was an invention of the Bush administration, the uranium enrichment is going to start up. All of that and the seizure of two Americans.
The lesson to take away here is that Kim Jong Il doesn't care what American Presidents, Secretaries of State, or diplomats say; he cares what they do. And right now, the answer is 'sit on their hands'. The only real question in Kim's mind is how long Americans will continue to do so. Which explains his repeated provocations.
I'd say that North Korea isn't in any serious danger of 'being provoked'. Indeed, North Korea is provoking! Like the little kid with a new babysitter, Kim is pushing as hard as he possibly can and will continue to do so until he encounters concrete resistance. In short, Obama must do something to establish the bounds across which the backwards regime will not be permitted.
Today, it seems that North Korea is preparing to test a missile that might arc toward Hawaii sometime around the Fourth of July. Destroying it on the launchpad or in the air would be entirely justifiable, even if the improved Taepodong-2 can't manage the distance to Hawaii. Doing so would demonstrate defensive capabilities and at least a modicum of determination to contain the poisonous North Korean belligerence.
Of course, whenever North Korea threatens retaliation, it really means it'll slit the throat of its South Korean neighbor (and maybe lob a missile or two at Japan). Like any hostage situation, this gives responsible people a great deal of pause and more than a little squeamishness. But maybe it's time to push back anyway--but only with the understanding that Seoul is in grave danger and that a serious military response to a North Korean attack might be necessary.
But if North Korea is really the scheming little brat that I think it is, we might have less to lose than we think. We certainly have a lot to gain.
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