The UN steps in

Now, in response to the latest North Korean threat to restart its main Yongbyon nuclear complex, UN chief Ban Ki-Moon has said the "crisis has gone too far", and is calling for urgent talks with the North. This will surely please no one more than Kim Jong-Un.

What's been gratifying to see so far has been the low key but firm response from the two main players across the board from the North: South Korea and the US. No one's letting themselves be drawn into an exchange of insults, despite the relentless stream of invective pouring out of Pyongyang. President Park Geun-Hye has pledged that the South will make a "strong and immediate retaliation without any other political considerations" should the North launch an attack, and told her military leaders that she trusted them to make their own immediate decisions in the field should the occasion arise. Meanwhile life in Seoul goes on, with a commendable lack of any sign of panic.

Similarly, the US has been playing things down, pointing out that despite Pyongyang's verbal threats, there were no signs of any troop movements that would suggest imminent military action. This may well fit in nicely with Obama's generally hands-off approach to foreign affairs, but it seems to me here to be exactly the right line to take. Send a few bombers over, a few stealth jet fighters, show some muscle, let Kim Jong-un swear and shout and scream away to his heart's content. Apart from that...ignore him. As with the violent drunk over at the other end of the bar: be prepared, but don't engage. Don't catch his eye.

Kim's efforts to attract attention - to scare people back to the negotiating table - are becoming increasingly strident. Both outside North Korea, and very likely inside as well, he's increasingly being seen as an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing but desperation: a man trapped by his own rhetoric, too inexperienced to be able to work out a different approach.

We know that negotiations with the North are a waste of time. They don't negotiate in good faith - simple as that. The nuclear blackmail approach has been round the block too many times. Pyongyang's bluff was being called, with some success.

Until now.

Comments

[Dom]

Jimmy Carter didn't get involved this time. I wonder if he is finally getting too old.