Nextonthelist

Ever the spin-masters, the only thing left that the US can say is “well, it’s smaller than they wanted.”

C’mon, is that it? How much you want to bet that Bush and his “senior” officials are going to stare at each other during tomorrow’s security briefing and say “now what?”

So what if it was “smaller” than expected. The fact that they were able to achieve a nuclear detonation at all is a CATASTROPHIC policy failure.

According to this article, North Korea was nice enough to give a 20 minute heads-up before entering the nuclear family. Sweet of ole Kim Jong huh?

Ok, so let’s guess about tomorrow: emergency UN Security Council meeting, multiple condemnations, calls for sanctions, and no action. Lots of talk, lots of saber rattling, and no action.

I hope that I can report someone being fired tomorrow or at least calls from Republicans that somebody get fired over this. I expect Democrats to seize this and run with it.

It’s being reported that North Korea has tested a nuclear weapon near Kilju City. If confirmed, it will be a monumental failure of the Bush administration. The six party talks have been a sham and the Bush foreign policy team should be fired.

Expect to see the usual condemnations from the U.N. and others over the next few days. The calls for sanctions will come, but it’s all meaningless. North Korea has proven to the world it has nukes and now the US and Asian allies will have to deal with it.

Remember those missile tests a few months ago? What about North Korea working on a long-range missile capable of hitting the US? This nuke test puts all things in a new light. Just wait till Iran has a nuke as well. Can the consequences of these policy failures get any more dire?

If I were President, tomorrow morning there would be many State Department people looking for a new job.

You know it’s time to strike North Korea when even former Clinton officials are saying do it. In a piece written in the Washington Post, Ashton Carter and William Perry advocate:

if North Korea persists in its launch preparations, the United States should immediately make clear its intention to strike and destroy the North Korean Taepodong missile before it can be launched. This could be accomplished, for example, by a cruise missile launched from a submarine carrying a high-explosive warhead.

The six party talks are a joke. Sorry President Bush, but it’s time to admit a policy failure. Yes the surrounding nations have a stake in what the North Koreans are doing, but when the North Korean Hitler decides he’s going to build nukes and now an intercontinental ballistic missile to carry them, unilateral action must be taken.

In fact, President Bush must act immediately to defend and protect the United States.

The concluding paragraph to the article sums this up nicely:

This is a hard measure for President Bush to take. It undoubtedly carries risk. But the risk of continuing inaction in the face of North Korea’s race to threaten this country would be greater. Creative diplomacy might have avoided the need to choose between these two unattractive alternatives. Indeed, in earlier years the two of us were directly involved in negotiations with North Korea, coupled with military planning, to prevent just such an outcome. We believe diplomacy might have precluded the current situation. But diplomacy has failed, and we cannot sit by and let this deadly threat mature. A successful Taepodong launch, unopposed by the United States, its intended victim, would only embolden North Korea even further. The result would be more nuclear warheads atop more and more missiles.

Bush called it right when he gave the “Axis of Evil” speech. It’s time Bush stopped being a Liberal on North Korea.

Things have been quiet for North Korea lately, but it looks like this is about to change.

North Korea is accelerating preparations for testing a missile that has the potential to strike the United States, a U.S. government official said Friday. A test of the Taepodong-2 long-range missile may be imminent, the official said.

From the attention the US is giving this, Kim Jong appears ready to step in a pile of trouble. It’s one thing to have nukes; it’s another thing to have nukes and a missile that can hit the US. The question is how long will the US continue to try the failed “six way” talks?

At some point Bush has to realize that the “talks” are failed and chart another path. North Koreans are starving and defecting whenever they get the courage to run. The world would definitely be better without a Communist North Korea.

Maybe Kim Jong will give the US the opportunity to do another regime change.