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Ambling towards Disaster; Bush's North Korea Policy
By Mike Whitney (about the author) Page 1 of 2 page(s)
For OpEdNews: Mike Whitney - Writer
It took 6 years of relentless threats, sanctions and belligerence, but Bush finally succeeded in pushing Kim Jong-Il to build North Korea's first nuclear bomb. Now, Kim can just add a few finishing touches to his ballistic-missile delivery system, the Taepo-dong ICBM, and he'll be able to wipe out the 9 western states with a flip of the switch.
In a matter of hours, the world has become a much more dangerous place, a fact that will have no effect of the blinkered ideologues at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. They've probably already moved on to the next phase of their plan to expand the Middle East catastrophe; Armageddon in Iran.
The crisis with North Korea was entirely avoidable for anyone with even minimal diplomatic skills and an elementary understanding of human psychology. Instead, the Bush troupe persisted for 6 years with the same inflexible policy nudging Kim ever-closer to producing his first nuclear weapon. Now, half the population of the United States is in the gun-sights of a madcap tyrant whose basic grasp of reality has always been seriously in doubt.
At the same time, the White House has resumed issuing statements via its sardonic press secretary, Tony Snow, that Bush "is closely monitoring the situation and reaffirms his commitment to defend our allies in the region."
"Monitoring the situation"? Bush has done everything in
his power to facilitate the North Korean despot's quest for WMD except hand-deliver atom-bombs to the front porch of his imperial palace!?!
Bush has put everyone in the region at greater risk and, without a doubt, triggered a nuclear-arms race in Japan, China and South Korea. It is the death-knell for non-proliferation and the threadbare NPT.
The Bush administration has known what Kim wants for 6 years and has had ample opportunity to find a peaceful resolution to the standoff. North Korea's demands go back to the original 1994 "Framework Agreement" in which Bill Clinton promised to provide food, fuel and 2 light-water reactors in exchange for North Korea's abandoning its nuclear weapons programs. The North agreed to these terms, but the United States has never honored its obligations.
When Bush took office, the agreement was jettisoned altogether and Bush pushed for sanctions. He placed North Korea on the "Axis of Evil" list, threatened regime change, and publicly announced that he "loathed" Kim Jung Il. All of this fueled the confrontation and thrust the wary Kim towards developing a viable nuclear deterrent to US aggression. Kim had no intention of being the next victim of Bush's preemptive policy.
Bush's dim-witted bravado and saber-rattling has only made negotiations more difficult and aggravated an already tense situation. Even when it was announced that Kim would be testing a nuclear device sometime during this past weekend, the headstrong Bush still refused to enter "11th hour" negotiations. Instead, his Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill issued yet another ominous-sounding threat that "North Korea can either have a future or they can have those weapons. They can't have both."
Kim, of course, brushed off the warning and detonated the bomb.
American Intelligence agencies now believe that North Korea has enough fissile material for between 2 to 8 nuclear warheads and they are speeding ahead with the development of the requisite delivery systems.
What will Bush do now?
Will he bomb the North and potentially open another front on the Korean Peninsula for our already over-extended military? Or will he simply continue with the fiery rhetoric and the chest-thumping bluster?
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by John R. Bolton
$9.95
Number of pages: 11
Publisher: National Review, Inc.
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