The Pillsbury Nuke Boy has stalled on any type of verification process that can assure us that North Korea has come clean on their nuclear programs and has given them all up.
So we're ready to step up the pressure:
The United States had warned that it would "rethink" its approach to North Korean nuclear disarmament after the latest round of six-country negotiations collapsed in Beijing on Thursday.
"The North Koreans have not come through and signed on to the verification protocol, which all other parties have agreed to," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
"Future fuel shipments will not go forward absent a verification regime," McCormack told reporters after what he called an "understanding" among the United States, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia.
We can only be sure of another month or two of the Bush administration playing hard ball (NOTE: I include some inertia carrying into the Obama administration, obviously). And yes, despite the complaints of many on the right, we have not saved North Korea through these talks. They continue to crumble and are less of a threat to South Korea now than when the talks started. And our missile defenses may nullify the North Korean threat--if they even have a nuclear warhead for their longer range missiles. Remember, their nuclear test was a fizzle and I see no reason to assume they have a nuclear device let alone a nuclear weapon.
Hopefully the next administration has enough other things to do to let the North Korean front just go along on auto-pilot for a bit, with North Korea dying a little more every day.
