North Korea's missile diplomacy: calling the world's bluff ... again -The iPINIONS Journal

No doubt you’ve seen how much fear and loathing North Korean President Kim Jong-Il incited among G-20 leaders this week with his latest threat to test fire his stockpile of missiles. And no doubt he did this in a hissy fit just to remind everyone that he’s still a far greater menace to the world than that Iranian guy – Ahmadinejad.

But I’ve been fulminating for years against the global attention his patently contrived temper tantrums always command – as I did, for example, in a commentary on October 4, 2006, entitled Why do world leaders even give North Korea’s president the time of day?

This is why I could barely contain my stupefaction at President Obama and world leaders for wasting time at their summit to fix the global financial crisis to warn Kim that playing with nuclear missiles is not the way to win friends and influence people.

After all, the record clearly shows his pathology to be such that dire warnings from perceived enemies only embolden Kim’s unruly behavior. Not to mention the fact that these warnings never amount to anything more than hollow words.

Accordingly, instead of writing another commentary, I shall suffice to reprise the one I wrote on July 5, 2006, the last time Kim had the entire world on pins and needles waiting for him to blast off:

How ‘bout them North Korean missiles, eh?

North Korea called America’s (and the world’s) bluff in daring and mocking fashion yesterday by synchronizing its launch of several missiles, including the dreaded long-range Taepodong, with the launch of US Space Shuttle Discovery.

Moreover, North Korean President Kim Jong-Il ordered his fourth-of-July “fireworks” despite warnings of dire consequences from world leaders, including President Bush who warned that launching them would be “provocative and unacceptable.”

Well, now North Korea has. And to add insult to this impertinence, Kim ordered the launch of an additional missile today – while world leaders were still trying to find a face-saving response to his first humiliating poke in their eyes.

But in this game of nuclear chicken, the US has already lost. After all, Bush has been so cowered by insurgents in Iraq that he’s now mobilizing a coalition of the willing to retaliate with pusillanimous sanctions. Never mind that everyone knows the North Koreans have become completely inured to sanctions. Indeed, they seem to relish their pariah status as the most sanctioned, inscrutable and isolated nation in the world today.

Frankly, all indications are that Kim has become the proverbial little tail wagging the big dog (Bush). And nothing confirms this quite like all of the specious, revisionist rhetoric coming out of Washington today about how the missiles posed no threat because they all fell into the Sea of Japan.

But I, for one, remember well how Bush dared Kim to fire them at all. Moreover, many nuclear experts indicated that merely launching the missiles would constitute success for the North Koreans because it would allow them to gather data necessary to perfect future launches. In fact, this latter assessment prompted William Perry, Secretary of Defense in the Clinton Administration, to call for a preemptive strike on the missiles while they were still on their launch pads.

Alas, American diplomacy vis-à-vis nuclear proliferation reeks of hypocrisy and fecklessness. Remember: Bush took military action against Saddam Hussein because he did not want the smoking gun (confirming that he possessed WMDs) to be a mushroom cloud over New York City. Yet [just like Clinton before him and Obama today] he seems resigned to wait for Lil’ Kim to perfect his technology to create a mushroom cloud over Los Angeles before taking military action against this certifiable nut….

Nevertheless, let me hasten to note that, as crazy as he seems, Kim is no more likely than Russian President Vladimir Putin is to fire a missile at the US, Japan or South Korea (intentionally or accidentally). Therefore, world leaders really should stop rising to the occasion every time he jerks their chain.

The best way to deal with Kim is to let him test fire his missiles without making it seem like an existential threat to the world. Especially because North Korea has the same sovereign right the US has to test its missiles … and he’ll do so anyway despite (or to spite) global protestations.

Of course, if he does the unthinkable (i.e. attacks another country or even attempts to sell nuclear weapons to terrorists), then I’m sure Obama will have no difficulty amassing a coalition of the willing, including the Chinese, to take out his little hermit kingdom.