Maybe He Should Have Said “Strategic Partner”
U.S. President George W. Bush has once again called North Korean leader Kim Jong-il a “tyrant,” only days before a fresh round of six-party negotiations about the prickly country’s nuclear program is set to start.
Bush was speaking to young business and civic leaders in the Brazilian capital of Brasilia on Sunday. In the remarks, he hailed Japan as a great friend in dealing with “a tyrant in North Korea,” Japan’s Asahi Shimbun and other dailies reported Monday.
“I’m going to Japan in two weeks. I will be sitting down with one of the best friends that I have in the international arena, [Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro] Koizumi,” Bush said. “What happened between the time when America was fighting Japan and when, now, Japan is an ally with the United States in dealing with a tyrant in North Korea, for example? And what happened was, Japan adopted a Japanese-style democracy.
Well, since giving North Korea even its most unreasonable, intentionally obtuse demands and calling this baby-killing mass-murderer “Mister” seems to have gotten us nowwhere, perhaps President Bush sees little to lose, and perhaps even something to be gained.
Don’t misunderestimate this hombre just because the English language seems to challenge him at times. Perhaps he’s figured out something that Chung Dong-Young, Selig Harrison, Nick Kristof, and Bill Richardson haven’t: the diplomatic niceties we use with nations that play the game of diplomacy aren’t effective inducements for megalomanical tyrants who don’t.