From the New York Sun:(regular lefty reader Christine of TwoBabes is gonna Love this one)To the extent that America needs to be particularly wary, it is of the danger that the North Korean test could be, like the war in Lebanon and Israel this summer, an Iranian-Syrian stunt aimed at diverting world attention from Tehran's own nuclear program. The North Korean test has prompted predictable calls for renewed and invigorated diplomacy, but America has been dealing with North Korea diplomatically since the 1994 "Agreed Framework," negotiated by our most hapless president, Jimmy Carter. In 2000, President Clinton went so far as to dispatch Secretary Albright to pay homage and clink glasses with Kim Jong Il, a toast that will live in infamy as one of the lowest points to which an American state secretary has ever sunk. North Korea has reveled in the diplomacy while moving ahead with its nuclear weapons program.
OK, OK, I know, predictable shots at Clinton and the hapless Jimmy Carter. However, the point is still valid. Sending in the Peanut Farmer and having intimate toasts has not quelled or fixed the problem. In fact, it exacerabated it and caused it to grow. Negotiation absent a stick and having only a carrot are not the way to go. And the stick has to be real, not some nice little missive from the IAEA. But the real problem with North Korea is what it teaches others. Again, from the article:
Iran has been watching and learning. The mullahs were caught a few years ago lying for almost two decades about their nuclear program. Nothing happened. There were no consequences. Instead they too were offered sweeteners in exchange for giving up what they shouldn't have in the first place. There has been a merry-go-round of broken deadlines and then more concessions. In early June, Mr. Bush warned that Iran had "weeks not months." At the United Nations, the Security Council gave Iran an August 31 deadline to suspend enrichment, a deadline Iran mocked. It's now October 10 and there have been no consequences for Iran.
Of course, people say, well, the reason we can't do anything is because Bush got us into Iraq and our military is stretched so thin and blah de blah de blah. Well, our military is stretched, you betcha. The Iraq War has gone on much longer than we thought. However, could it be that maybe the reason the insurgents and the terrorist types didn't immediately fold up their tents and go jihad in Bali is that they saw the crack in the unity? You know, we talk about how people can't get away with media gaffes in this digital age. Well, nations can't get away with fake unity either, unless they are North Korea or Venezuela or Iran, the darlings of the left. Those who are still fighting against us saw the chinks in the armor of unity and purpose as the media and those in the Left who care more for politics than in the Mission continued to assail the common cause we had. They watch CNN over in dirkadirkaland, too. As they saw kooks like Micahel Moore and Code Pink, they began to say, hmm, maybe ol Osammy was right, if we just hold out and kee engaging in these tactics. Then John Kerry came to light and they got exposed to the Left's tactics during Vietnam and how the left lost that war for us, and they said, aha, that is the key! Maybe, and again this won't happen, in this world where now we have a rogue state nuclear power with nukes going to be aimed at us, we might think about coming together and supporting our troops more so they can get rid of our enemies there, and then we can send them elsewhere.
However, as it relates to North Korea, there is plenty of blame to go around. From the article:
Much of the reaction yesterday — predictably, in the month before the election — focused on the test as a failure of the Bush administration. But it's just as much a failure of the other parties of the six-party talks, Communist China, free South Korea, Russia, and Japan. All those countries are closer to Pyongyang geographically than America is. South Korea, in particular, has failed to take seriously the nuclear threat in its own backyard, preferring to let American troops serve as a tripwire. The South Koreans, unlike the West Germans, appear to value their own prosperity more than the prospect of national reunification that would free their northern neighbors. The South Korean government represents a sad falling away from, a spurning of the sacrifice of American GIs and other free world soldiers whose blood went into the soil of free Korea.
We should be talking about those countries. Russia and the ChiComms have been patrons to Kim Jong Il for decades. While they wag one finger, they dole out resources with the other hand. And South Korea truly seems, it appears to have gone from wanting one free Korea to being OK with two, as long as they get all the cashola. Truly a sad state. And as it goes with the sacrifice of our GIs in the Forgotten War of Korea, I think the Iraqis of any creed should take a hard look at the sacrifice of our soldiers to free them from Saddam, something pretty much everybody there save a few agree with.
You know, in North Korea, and I think in Iran, there are still opportunities, if we take the right tack, as suggested in this article:
Conventional diplomatic wisdom views North Korea as a nuclear proliferation problem, but it is an opportunity as well. It could spur America to join with Asian allies such as Japan, Australia, South Korea, and Taiwan, making sure that those countries have the missile defense and offense necessary to deter and defend against North Korea. If diplomacy is in order here, it is between not America and North Korea but America and our allies in Asia. The need is to stress to them the importance of the approach outlined by the North Korean Human Rights Act that Mr. Bush signed into law in 2004. That act is being indefatigably implemented by the special envoy for human rights in North Korea, Jay Lefkowitz. We were struck by Mr. Bush's comment after an April 28, 2006 meeting in the Oval Office with North Korean refugees. He called it "one of the most moving meetings since I've been the president."...Mr. Bush recognizes that threat isn't so much the nuclear arms themselves but the nature of the regimes in Tehran and Pyongyang. Mr. Bush recognizes, we have little doubt, that the best weapon in this struggle, one more powerful than any nuclear missile or Axis bomb, is the idea of freedom with which our arsenal is so well-armed.
People on both sides are so concerned making hay with this that they forget this, that these regimes truly are lunatics. They are headed by men with god complexes and notions of immortality. One claims to serve a false perversion of God, and the other views himself as a god. However, both are equally mad. It will take determined allies, and more importantly, a determined and united citizenry of the US to fight this off. Do we have the mettle? Or, has our arsenal of freedom crapped out?
