North Korea threatened a military response to South Korean participation in a U.S.-led program to seize weapons of mass destruction, and said it will no longer abide by the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War. – Bloomberg
Secretary Clinton weighed in this past hour: “North Korea has made a choice. It has chosen to violate specific language, UN Security Council Resolution 1718… It has abrogated its obligations it entered into through the six-party talks and it continues to act in a provocative and belligerent manner to its neighbors. There are consequences to such actions.” She continued, saying the U.S. and a “unified community,” including China and Russia, are working on what steps will be taken going forward. Then Clinton underscored our commitments to “the defense of South Korea and Japan,” which is “part of our alliance obligation which we take very seriously.” The intent being to “rein in” the North Koreans and bring them back into a “framework of discussion” towards “denuclearization” that will “benefit the people of North Korean, the region and the world.”
If you’ve been reading my posts on the heavy nuclear breathing coming from Iran you know that I believe there is little the U.S. or the world can do to stop Iran from going nuclear. North Korea is a model that proves this point even more strongly. World leaders, no matter whom or where, have really missed the mark on what’s been developing over the years we’ve been trying to think small, incremental and one nation at a time, thinking disrespecting mad men and tyrants will make them more logical. Maybe we had a chance at the end of the Cold War to muster forces for a new non-proliferation coalition that actually meant something, but we didn’t think broadly enough. We simply didn’t have the imagination to envision a world at zero. We still don’t, because if we did we’d understand that the entire world has to buy in. That means everyone.
Now we’ve got North Korea making everyone nervous. Tom Ricks says ignore them. Well, they’re not going away, nor is the prowess they now have achieved going to do anything good for the region. But still we ask, How do you stop him?
.. Ed Friedman, a specialist in Asian international relations at the University of Wisconsin, was not optimistic. “The continuing development of nuclear weapons and missiles to carry them by North Korea … has large and dangerous consequences,” he said by email.
“Evidence suggests Chinese analysts have concluded that little can be done to stop either North Korea or Iran from going nuclear.”
Friedman worries Japan might ultimately go nuclear to defend itself, and that this would heighten tensions in the region – especially between Tokyo and Beijing.
Exactly. We can’t. So, now what?
Conservatives like to argue whose fault it is that North Korea went nuclear.
First, on the political front, North Korea’s Kim Jong Il has challenged President Obama more in four months than he did President George W. Bush in eight years. Since Obama has taken office, North Korea has kicked out UN nuclear inspectors, launched both short- and long-range missiles and tested a nuclear weapon.
If not this, it’s Iran must be stopped at all cost, including military action, which is the dumbest suggestion since preemption on Iraq, with neocons still believing in a strategy called regime change. It’s the Don’t Blame Us, You Talked to Them diplomatic bankruptcy that led to our current dilemma. But whether the U.S. can get beyond this juvenile political dialogue is doubtful given that this is what drives our critical media.
While Obama is tinkering in Iraq and Afghanistan, the importance of both not in doubt, an even more serious situation beckons beyond and I’m not talking just about Pakistan. It’s a world with Iran and North Korea both nuclear nations, Japan turning nuclear provoking China, with a wider Middle East escalation incubating as well, while loose nukes remain a big threat to U.S. security.
Smarter minds than mine aren’t offering up any solutions, let alone definitive strategies. But it seems to me that someone has to suggest a “Zero Nuke Summit” or something less threatening, bringing all players to the table, including those we don’t want to engage or admit are serious players. That means it would include Russia, Israel, Iran, North Korea, India, Pakistan, etc., but also Egypt and Saudi Arabia, because beyond Israel, no one has a bigger stake in Iran not going nuclear than the Saudis.
Will this happen? When pigs fly. There’s no conversation among the “experts,” let alone intellectual or media pressure coming from anywhere demanding it. Not the traditional media, including cable or network news, so dealing with the nuclear world rumblings and escalation threats collectively remains a far off conversation that amounts to talking to yourself.
We simply can’t continue to pretend this is going to go away. … Well, we can (and have), but it’s not.
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