First, it is a laugh if you think that by "doing something" these people mean anthing other than whipping out the check book and asking the Pillsbury Nuke Boy how many zeros he wants. It is a simple game these people play, really.
Second, who says we aren't doing something? I think we have been doing something for years, now. We've been squeezing North Korea in an attempt to collapse their economy. The talks we have with them now and again are just a stalling tactic to buy the time for North Korea to collapse.
John Bolton, now a free man, expresses what I assume is our policy though we don't articulate it:
"The only answer ... is the collapse of the North Korean regime and the hopefully peaceful reunification of Korea, and that should be our objective," Bolton, now a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, told reporters.
North Korea is certainly vulnerable to squeezing it until the government implodes:
New Year's Day is a major holiday in North Korea and the communist regime doles out special rations to its hunger-stricken population of 23 million.
The North's government had promised to give a day of extra rations to its people, but did not, said the Seoul-based Good Friends in its newsletter.
Still, citizens in the capital of Pyongyang received three days of extra rations and more special rations were given to medium-level government officials living there, the group said.
This will be just one more confirmation of the appreciation of the reality that is beginning to spread in North Korea.
So rather than bombing or invading as the Left fears we want to do and rather than just giving in and paying the North Koreans to be quiet as the Left proposes, we have tailored a response that exploits North Korea's vulnerability.
And we play to North Korea's expectations. Having blustered and bullied the West into paying them off before (and thanks again for that President Carter on your freelance trip that undermined what little resolve the Clinton administration had), the North Korean rulers retain hope for success even as we starve them of the funds needed to prop up their regime. And the great thing is, the longer the North Koreans hold off on pulling the trigger, the less likely they can actually carry out a military threat. Every day the North Korean military deteriorates.
Adding to the nuance of our plan is that it covers the possibility that North Korea is actually Iran's nuclear test site. What else can we make of this?
The Iranian Foreign Ministry delegation, led by Vice Minister Mahdi Safari, arrived in Pyongyang, the Korean Central News Agency reported in a one-sentence dispatch without giving any further details.
If recent reports of activity at North Korea's nuclear test site results in a Uranium-based device going off soon, I think we might be able to conclude that Iran has subcontracted this smoking gun of a step to a country too tough to bomb (because North Korea holds Seoul hostage with lots of artillery pointed at the city).
As I've written, if Iran was smart they'd have dispersed their nuclear infrastructure beyond the borders of Iran.
So the importance of collapsing North Korea becomes even more important.
I hope Bolton's comments reflect our actual policy. The signs point to it, but we've played this pretty close to our vest so it is hard to say with any certainty.
And even if squeezing North Korea is our policy, we are in a race between their collapse and their salvation if misguided Westerners get panicky and write that big check. New Year's Day will come early to North Korea if that happens. I'm no expert on Asian calendars, but I think that would be the Year of the Weasel.
