the last iron curtain

i think we're in the uncomfortable position of accepting the fact that north korea IS a moderate nuclear power. from that acceptance we can proceed accordingly. this will require a lot of honest diplomacy on our part & a new receptivity on theirs. this won't be easy, especially considering what the bush administration did to the practice of diplomacy around the world.

it would be easy to blame bush for bullying cranky & oddball regimes. the real problem w/bush's tactics was that these folks had recourse to a pretty dramatic response. it took them a little while but nuclear devices generally command some respect out there in the world. we can thank the bush administration's hard-line for creating this scenario. they applied it unthinkingly to everyone globally w/o nuance or an understanding of specific concerns. you were either for us or against us, or more to the point, you either did what we said or suffered the consequences. in the fallout from this attitude, iran will be next. our relationship w/israel guarantees that. this is not to say that we abandon israel but that our relationship creates a unique situation in that specific region & it has to been reckoned into any diplomatic equation there. we can't have generalized diplomacy applied brusquely anymore. each situation demands specific address.

bear in mind that when the soviet union failed & we got a look at their actual nuclear capability, it was nowhere near as fearsome as our intelligence community had claimed. for the most part, they would have had to literally carry the warheads to their targets. also bear in mind that the misinformed intelligence was from a community that had been initially formed SOLELY to gather information on the soviet union. in other words, while it's not smart to ignore a certain amount of fear-mongering on the part of the intelligence community, taking their information w/o a grain of salt is even less so.

modest nuclear capability. that's simply where they are & they aren't going back. it's up to obama/clinton to formulate a new diplomatic strategy w/those facts in mind & to carry it out w/delicacy & good will. if we refuse the simplicity of creating overdetermined boogey-men("axis of evil," "terrorists," etc)& give each situation its due, we'll do ok. will a hard-line have to be imposed sometime? of course it will but the hard line should always always give everyone involved realistic options. w/o options, a cornered cowering rat morphs into a fierce lethal ball of spastic energy. who in their right mind wants to face something like that?