By "squeezed" I mean starved and abused them, of course.
Yet after all of that effort, the North Koreans failed to light up a nuke last summer and failed to demonstrate basic competence in long-range ballistic missiles as well. Which explains why they want an agreement with us after stiffing us for so long.
Which brings us back to the other part of the equation that North Korea tried to solve:
North Korea is facing one of its biggest food shortages in the past decade with millions of people going hungry because of a poor harvest and a huge drop in donor aid, a U.N. official said Wednesday.
The World Food Program Asian regional director wants immediate food aid for North Korea:
"We can't wait ... The lean season is upon is," Banbury said. "The needs of the people are separate from the political talks. There ought not to be a direct linkage between those talks and the food security situation in the country."
Ah, but Mr. Banbury is quite wrong. North Korea's regime made the linkage quite some time ago. It was classic Russian and Chinese Marxism actually--forcibly extract resources from the rural peasants to pay for development--in this case nuclear development rather than factories. Now the regime has neither nukes nor food.
Without nukes, the regime can't blackmail America and Japan into supporting them with cash. Without that support, the regime can't pay for a conventional military to threaten South Korea. Which means South Korea can't be blackmailed.
And without food, the result of that linkage that North Korea first made, the Pillsbury Nuke Boy can't even be sure that his army will remain loyal. Kim Jong-Il once thought that he'd have to rely on nukes and spooks to keep him fat and happy without the army, but now he's down to just spooks.
We just need to drag out talks with North Korea until they collapse. Don't save this monstrous regime.
