"...Pyongyang was prepared to shut down its development, testing, and deployment of all medium- and long-range missiles.
"By 1997...the North Koreans were complaining bitterly that the United States was slow to deliver its promised oil and stalling on its pledge to end its hostile policies...
"It was against this backdrop -- Pyongyang's growing conviction the US was not living up to its commitments -- that the North in 1998 began to explore... other military options.
"Bush tore up the framework agreement, exacerbating the deterioration in relations he had sparked a year earlier when he named North Korea part of his 'axis of evil' in January 2002. In response, the North kicked out the IAEA inspectors and began building what would become its first bomb, in 2006, triggering a second nuclear crisis that continues to this day." ("Diplomacy With North Korea Has Worked Before, and Can Work Again," Tim Shorrock, The Nation)
Now the North has hydrogen bombs and Washington is still playing its stupid games. This whole fake crisis is a big smokescreen designed to conceal Washington's imperial machinations. Trump is using Kim's missile tests as a pretext to extend the Pentagon's military tentacles deeper into Asia so the US can assume a dominant role in the world's fastest growing region. It's the same game Washington has been playing for the last 100 years. Unfortunately, they're pretty good at it.
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