It’s now official; 12 years after the Neville Chamberlains of our time, former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, declared peace in our time regarding North Korea’s nuclear program following one-on-one talks, Krazy Kim Jong-Il had his military conduct an underground nuclear test. Let’s take a look at the failures:
- In 1994, the Peanut Farmer-brokered deal left enough weapons-grade plutonium in North Korea left under “virtual, remote” guard. Not surprisingly, North Korea broke through that non-existant guard in 2002 to retake full possession of that plutonium. In contrast, the US has been buying a massive amount of various nuclear material from most of the former Soviet republics and transporting them here under a program started under former President George H. W. Bush to prevent just such a seizure. Question for the lefties – have those former Soviet republics gone nuclear?
- Under both the terms of that deal and a separate South Korean “Sunshine” initiative, North Korea has been given massive amounts of aid. Almost all of that aid has been diverted to the North Korean military, and that aid had been flowing more-or-less unimpeded up until earlier today.
- In 1998, the international community found out there was a second North Korean nuclear program not covered by the Peanut Farmer-brokered deal. Repeated talks by the US under both Clinton and President Bush, South Korea, Japan, Russia, Red China, the IAEA, and the UN did nothing of consequence to either slow or stop this second program.
- The one option that has been proven to work every time it has been tried, military intervention-induced regime change, was never really an option. Unlike Iraq, North Korea, even before they went nuclear, had the ability to lay waste to a significant portion of their neighbors with no effective defense against it (specifically in North Korea’s case, South Korea and its capital, Seoul). Also, unlike Iraq, there may well be “volunteers” coming from a couple of countries mentioned above to aid in North Korea’s defense (cough…Russia…cough…Red China…cough); in fact, there is a history of that happening.
So, what now? We’ve already established that talks haven’t stopped the North Koreans. We’ve also established that the country that stands to both gain and lose the most with a regime change, South Korea, is rightfully frightened by what they have to lose if such a regime change were attempted. There are actually three questions:
- Do the ChiComs and Russians think they can still control Kim Jong-Il like they did his father, Kim Il-Sung?
- If so, will they go to the mat for Krazy Kim the Younger like they did Krazy Kim the Elder?
- Does President Bush have the stones to ignore the ‘Rats, the leftist world community, the probability of question 1 above being yes, the possibility of question 2 also being yes, the almost-certain destruction of Seoul, South Korea (remember, there’s no effective defense against artillery shells, and North Korea has thousands upon thousands of pieces within range), 4 years of inactivity hoping that the lessons of Iraq taken to heart by Libya would also be taken to heart by North Korea, and the now-likely nuclear incineration of a few thousand American troops to disarm North Korea before a handful of North Korean nukes concentrated in North Korea becomes a couple thousand of them spread around to the highest bidders?
I’m not hopeful.
