At the U.N., Life Imitates ‘Team America’

Kim Jong Il: Hans Brix? Oh no! Oh, herro. Great to see you again, Hans!

Hans Blix: Mr. Il, I was supposed to be allowed to inspect your palace today, but your guards won’t let me enter certain areas.

Kim Jong Il: Hans, Hans, Hans! We’ve been frew this a dozen times. I don’t have any weapons of mass destwuction, OK Hans?

Hans Blix: Then let me look around, so I can ease the UN’s collective mind. I’m sorry, but the UN must be firm with you. Let me in, or else.

Kim Jong Il: Or else what?

Hans Blix: Or else we will be very angry with you”¦ and we will write you a letter, telling you how angry we are.

On balance, reality may be more farcical than parody. The real Kim Jong Il doesn’t deny having WMD’s. He demonstrates them (if ineptly). But his mockery of the U.N. lacks no trappings of contempt but a trap door … over a shark tank. The following quote is not from “Team America:”

“Our military will continue with missile launch drills in the future as part of efforts to strengthen self-defense deterrent,” said the statement, carried in state-run media.

“If anyone intends to dispute or add pressure about this, we will have to take stronger physical actions in other forms.”

Ready for the firm and unified response of which we were assured? Well, it depends on who you believe. John Bolton claims that Japan’s proposed resolution, which would deny North Korea the materials and funds to make more missiles, has “broad and deep support.” Yet that seems less than clear:

Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador told The Associated Press that Moscow would not back sanctions, as the resolution calls for. Instead, Russia wants the council to pass a nonbinding presidential statement with the goal of getting North Korea back into six-party talks on its nuclear program.

“No, we don’t think that sanctions is the instrument, the leverage which is to be employed right now and right here,” Konstantin Dolgov told the AP.

A non-freaking-binding presidential statement? Has this guy acquired a crack habit? This may be the Abyssinia moment when sober historians will eventually agree that the United Nations became, irredeemably, what the League of Nations became before it: a kabuki theatre for tyrants to play out their cynical and pecuniary machinations. We may as well recognize the institution’s name for the oxymoron it has become. The nations are not united. We have national interests. And for all our imperfections and disagreements, we still share a consistent set of values with many other individual democracies. We must protect those interests, multilaterally or otherwise.

Russia wouldn’t be saying that if China weren’t taking a similar position, which, as James pointed out already, it is. China actually has the cojones to say it’s not their problem that their client threatens our national security. I read that as license to pursue our interests without regard to the amount of Chinese assets we collaterally freeze, or whether it ultimately brings down the Bank of China. While that’s not the best outcome for anyone, it’s probably cheaper than replacing a city, and it certainly doesn’t rule out more incremental pressure on China’s exports or currency.

I’ve already pointed out that we have a wide range of realistic ways to put a firm grip between Kim Jong Il’s collarbone and his chins, up to and including robust enforcement of the Proliferation Security Initiative that would constitute a de facto blockade.

Or, we could simply extend this Great American puss-out until North Korea has the quantities, warheads, and silos to pose a genuine and fully transferrable threat. There is an even greater danger in this, however: North Korea will have demonstrated that no one will stand in its way, no matter how flagrant its behavior. That vastly increases the danger of some horrible malice or miscalculation becoming a causus belli.

Just to help me underscore the point, the North Koreans show every sign of preparing more tests, possibly to include another Taepodong II. It would be a lovely “coincidence” if this one also fails during its first stage. That seems more likely than effective action by the United Nations.