North Korea Boom!

Dennis Byrne says: Welcome Back to the 1950s

He has an article oulining our position against tinhorn dictators whose weaponry we want to neuter. He makes the appropriate points, but it really seems like there is nowhere to go but down.

If we're really going to be effective against these independent dictators, what means do we really have?

Here's the Upshot:

Diplomacy supposedly is the effective way to deal with threats and worse. Bush has failed, we're told, because he doesn't know how to do diplomacy. When he "goes it alone," he doesn't know how to do diplomacy. When he takes the multilateral approach, as he has with North Korea, he doesn't know how to do diplomacy. Of course, the criticism overlooks the fact that neither the bi-lateral diplomatic efforts of President Bill Clinton nor the multi-lateral approach of Bush has worked. Diplomacy first didn't work; neither did diplomacy second, third or fourth.

Where does it leave us? After withdrawing from the world's trouble spots, after disengaging from meaningful confrontation with the Kim Jong-ils and Mahmoud Ahmadinejads of the world, what weapons do we have remaining?

Doing nothing lets their threat gather.
Talks don't work.
Sanctions hurt, but they are a step in the right direction.
War is presently impractical.

Glad I'm not president.

(the photo is South Korean troops dismantling loudspeakers that had been used to boom propaganda at North Korea. Not the most effective way to overthrow a dictator. ) http://theseoultimes.com/ST/?url=/ST/db/read.php?idx=669

Dennis Byrne site

Dennis Byrne at RCP