North Korea's Nuclear Test and Bush's FUBAR Foreign Policy

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How ironic that North Korea carried out its nuclear test as an armada of US warships heads to Iran, ostensibly in retaliation for Iran's alleged nuclear-development plan, which US intelligence agencies estimate would take over a decade to implement, if it exists at all. Different countries suffer different consequences for proliferation.

If nothing else, North Korea's flamboyant tyrant, Kim Jong-Il, appears once again to have outfoxed the world community, and his nuclear test will play well domestically, with his people facing another hungry, harsh winter. Kim can also rely on the usual US response to his transgressions: harsh words, talk of UN sanctions, and then complete disinterest as fighting in the Middle East takes precedence.

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Kim Jong-Il knows full well that Bush's record on North Korea has been characterized by an ineffective combination of bravado and indifference. The administration's 2002 Nuclear Posture Review, for example, aggressively warned North Korea and certain other countries about potential US "nuclear strike capabilities" in the vaguely-worded "event of surprising military developments." (Pyongyang's response to the Nuclear Posture Review was predictable: "Now that the nuclear lunatics are in office in the White House, we are compelled to examine all agreements with the U.S.")

But for all the bluster, US punitive measures against North Korea have been less than consistent. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly threatened Pyongyang over developing its nuclear capabilities, yet failed to mention his own contribution: Rumsfeld was on the board of ABB, a company that sold hundreds of millions of dollars of equipment and services to North Korean nuclear plants. In another intriguing coincidence, despite his administration's slamming "axis of evil" nukes, in 2003 Bush requested $3.5 million for a consortium building nuclear reactors in North Korea.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1009-26.htm