Category: Appeasement

Dennis Blair, who tried to put diplomacy’s own Jeremiah Wright in charge of writing our national intelligence estimates, has just thrown the entire Obama Administration off message on North Korea’s upcoming missile test. (Mark your calendars for April 4th, though April 15th seems at least as likely). Blair, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee no less, mused that North Korea’s missile test is probably just what the North Koreans say it is: “I tend to believe that the North...

With most of the major players in Obama’s cabinet selected, the question turns to what sort of policies we’ll see during this administration. The shape of those policies is already being tested by North Korea’s state terrorism against South Korea, its threat to test an ICBM — in flagrant violation of two U.N. resolutions — and its continuing repudiation of its 2007 disarmament commitments. So far, the preponderance of evidence suggests that the Obama Administration lacks a coherent plan for...

Ad nauseum. Any old excuse will do: North Korea said on Monday it would never unilaterally dismantle its nuclear weapons and demanded inspectors probe the South to make sure it is not harbouring U.S. atomic arms, further stepping up tensions with its neighbour. [….] A North Korean army spokesman said in comments carried by the state’s official KRT TV that the North and the South remained in a state of war and it was “a shameless act of imprudence” to...

In the summary of its December 15th press briefing following the collapse of the Not-Quite-Agreed Framework, the State Department admitted that the talks are at an impasse and declared that the “[b]all is in North Korea’s court.” Interestingly, the Chosun Ilbo, summarizing a Rodong Sinmun editorial calling on North Koreans to unite around “the strength of comradeship,” headlines with the opposite conclusion: “Ball Is in America’s Court, N.Korea Warns.” Here, I must register rare agreement with our State Department. Our...

Taking a page, no doubt, from Richard Nixon’s Christmas bombing of Hanoi, President Bush has decided that Pyongyang must face stern measures for reneging on its most recent agreement to verifiably disarm: No more fuel oil for you! The humanity! Well, all I can say is, thank God he didn’t disinvite the Pyongyang State Symphony. How many more days until this cowboy diplomacy madness ends?