U.S. and others play musical chairs (at six-party talks) while North Korea (and Iran) play with fire that could burn us all….

President George W. Bush is fond of projecting the notion that, although his is not the most intelligent and articulate voice on the world stage, it is certainly the most authoritative and reliable.

But North Korean President Kim Jong IL’s brazen defiance of Bush’s ultimatum on developing nuclear weapons is making his voice seem no more authoritative and reliable than it is intelligent and articulate. After all, from the early days of his presidency, Bush has continually voiced the unambiguous declaration that:

Well, Mr Kim has now called his bluff. And he did it in a dramatic fashion that is clearly far more humiliating for Bush than the humiliation Bill Clinton suffered when Monica called his bluff by producing her (stained) blue dress.

But my stupefaction over mushrooming developments in this crisis compelled me to express an almost resigned lament in this recent article, here, entitled Okay, so North Korea has nukes…we think. Now what?! And where one might have expected his slick-Willie predecessor to talk his way out of his public humiliation, the notion of Bush now trying to emulate him is simply pathetic:

“…I think it’s a much more effective policy to have China using her leverage, South Korea using its leverage, Japan using its leverage to say to the North Koreans give up your nuclear weapons programs….

As a matter of fact I’m confident that this is the way to go to solve this issue peacefully.” [Bush’s ex post facto strategy for not tolerating nuclear weapons in North Korea]

Though, ironically, this is the very kind of diplomatic (multilateral) strategy Bush’s critics wanted him to follow in dealing with Saddam Hussein’s brazen defiance. Yet these same critics are now criticizing him for subjugating his superpower will to that of others involved in six-party talks with North Korea; namely China, Russia, South Korea and Japan.

Meanwhile, China – which purportedly holds the most leverage over Mr Kim – has already indicated that it will not countenance the most important provision, which calls for the verifiable and irreversible disarmament of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Even worse, all of the other parties involved are entreating Bush to quit deferring to their six-party talks to resolve this crisis and engage Mr Kim “mano a mano”!

Frankly, the bottom line is that everyone in the world knows – as well as the parties to these talks know – that no amount of bilateral or multilateral talk will ever deter Mr Kim from his nuclear ambitions.

Moreover, as if blasting off one nuclear weapon was not injurious enough to Bush’s pride, Mr Kim has vowed to add insult to that injury by blasting off even more.

Therefore, the question for Bush – the man who always seemed so convincing when he asserted that “I say what I mean and mean what I say” – is:

Now that it is self-evident that North Korea possesses nuclear weapons, and equally self-evident that the other members of your six-party talks are quite prepared to tolerate North Korea having them, what are you going to do to prove that you really do mean what you say?

Alas, I am convinced that, despite his rhetoric and the clear and present danger Mr Kim poses, Bush will in fact tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea, until “the smoking gun” – in the form of a mushroom cloud – is rising over the United States or an allied country its legally bound to defend. (In fact, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is currently on a mission to reassure Japan and South Korea of U.S. protection, and to stiffen China’s spine to help quanrantine North Korea.)

Indeed, the only uncertainty that remains is whether this mushroom cloud will come courtesy of Mr Kim; or whether Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will preempt him in infamy by launching a nuclear bomb to wipe Israel off the map….

NOTE: Listen carefully in the coming days to see how Bush is reformulating his unambiguous declaration to a feckless promulgation that goes something like this:

There will be grave consequences for North Korea if Kim Jong IL transfers his nuclear weapons to al-Qaeda or any other terrorist group….

Fait accompli!

North Korea, nuclear weapons test, six party talks