According to the Associated Press, French authorities claimed that North Korea's test was so low yield, it must have been a failure. Other analysts tried to shoosh the French, worrying that North Korea might conduct another test. What???? Is everything knee jerk? Does anyone think these things through?
The whole Western world is tap dancing as fast as a frog on a frying pan to Kim Chong-il's tune. John Bolton, the most personable diplomat since Ghengis Khan is screaming for sanctions and wingnuts are coming out of the woodwork arguing we should put all the North Koreans out of their misery to get Kim. The Japanese want to starve the North Koreans into submission. China's afraid they'll all stream across the Yalu and eat the bark off their trees.
I say encourage Kim to run eight or nine tests to start! We estimate Kim only has enough plutonium for eight bombs, don't we? Kim can't pedal what he blows up under the Korean mountains to Al Qaeda or Iran!
But if we make things ever worse for North Korea with sanctions--cut of access to Japanese markets and blolckade shipping, we can almost GUARANTEE a high-priced sale of a nuclear device to some wealthy non-state actor or state-sponsored terror organization.
Negotiate with the jerk! Let him humiliate you from time to time. Make him look good with his people with food, health care, fertilizer, equipment, and energy. Make him dependent on and glad for inclusivity in the community of nations.
Encirclement/isolation didn't convert China and it won't convert North Korea.
Beating the crap out of kids doesn't improve their behavior. Starving and kicking dogs doesn't bring them to obedience. Ignoring their tantrums and rewarding their occasional good behaviors appears to be the way to go.
Chicken Littling is not the answer. Let's act like adults for a change. And let's rein in the bully boys.
Doc Rock
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