Blustering at North Korea

Charlie Eklund over at the featured AOL Journal The Other Shoe suggests that the only hope for the nuclear negotiations with North Korea is American bluster. (I'm paraphrasing; check the link for his post.)

At this point, that's about all defenders of the Bush Administration's policy on North Korea have to rely on. Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay at the American Prospect have a good brief piece in the current print edition on this topic, "Nuclear Wal-Mart?"

As they point out:

[F]or all the talk about flexing America's muscles, Bush blanched at the
prospective costs of pushing North Korea hard. Saddam Hussein didn't have
nuclear weapons; Kim Jong-Il did. Even if the United States successfully
preempted a nuclear attack, North Korea has 10,000 artillery tubes deployed in
the mountains about 40 miles north of Seoul, which could level the city of 10
million people. In effect, Bush, having trumpeted a doctrine of preemption as an
alternative to deterrence and containment, was now himself deterred.

The Iraq War is a major commitment of American forces. The decision to occupy Iraq means our options in confronting a problem like North Korea are more seriously constrained now.

- Posted by Bruce Miller 09/03/03

Tags: nonproliferation, north korea, nuclear nonproliferation