Drafting Up Harsh Words

Security Council Talks
It's quite stupid really. North Korea is letting off nuclear tests underground and all the UN Security Council can do is talk about how they're going to condemn North Korea.

"I think there has been a lot of wishful thinking in the region. There was a tendency to think that North Korea was not a nuclear weapons state," says John Pike, a weapons expert with Global Security.org. "It's sort of a blowback from Iraq. People have overcompensated on Iraq, and so now the standard of proof is, I'm not going to assess anybody as having something that has not been demonstrated unambiguously." Now that there is no such ambiguity, it should make it easier to bring China and South Korea into alignment with the U.S. and Japan and coordinate a strategy to contain the regime.

But notwithstanding John Bolton's smile, there may still be limits to how much unanimity the U.S. can achieve on North Korea. Some of the same calculations that the North Koreans likely made in choosing to test their nuke now may well protect them now from any kind of harsh international response. "They see the international community has its hands full with Iraq and Iran. They recognize they're at the apex of South Korean softness towards the north. The next election in about a year will probably lead to a more conservative South Korean government. They calculate that China is not going to let them collapse, " notes Michael J. Green, who handled Asian affairs for the Bush White House National Security Council (NSC) until December 2005 and is now senior advisor at the Center for International and Strategic Studies.

And they may be right. As angry and concerned as they may be about the test, Beijing and Seoul will likely remain a lot more worried about the collapse of the Pyongyang regime and chaos on their borders than about the murky state of the north's weapons programs. "The challenge for the administration is, can they get China to do enough?" asks Green. "The Chinese don’t want to go so far they create a whole another nightmare for themselves with North Korea falling apart." Pike thinks China won't take the risk. "That's why we're not going to get anything beyond words out of the Security council," he says.

Good grief.
It's as if the whole neighbourhood is having a neighborhood watch meeting because the crazy guy has bought a truckload of explosives and has started 'testing' them by lighting them in his backyard. And all they've got to say is "We disapprove strongly! We'll stop trading with you and the bank will freeze your accounts!"
Colour me unimpressed.

Somebody Bury Paul
Former PM Paul Keating kind of piped up with his opinion on the situation.

Mr Keating said he feared if Japan chose to go it alone and develop nuclear weapons, it risked offending its largest neighbour and emerging economic powerhouse, China.

"My great concern is that Japan may use the impasse of North Korea and this testing of its nuclear weapons to move into nuclear weapons itself, eschewing the nuclear protection provided to it by the United States under its umbrella," he told a business breakfast.

"Such an outcome would be affronting and confronting to the Chinese, encouraging them to adopt an altogether different posture in respect of Japan.

"And if China adopts an altogether different posture in respect to Japan, the world we know today changes."

Mr Keating said he hoped the problems on the Korean peninsula could be satisfactorily dealt with and that Japan, despite its insularity and internal problems, could find common ground with China in the future.

Yeah well, for the Japanese to go nuclear, they're going to have to change their constitution, just like they have to change their constitution if they want to go to war with North Korea. You know, it is possible, but so is the possibility that, err...., Australia might become a republic sometime soon. Such undertakings require major changes to the constitution; It's just not on the cards, even if some rightwing blowhards insist on it. In the mean time, isn't it the case that in this situation South Korea and Japan are the threatened parties? It's certainly not China, who surprise, surprise, already have nukes. So why start fretting the unlikely villain who might be making nukes before the likely villain who is already on the loose with nukes?

I never thought I'd ever say this Mr. Keating, but how'bout a nice warm cup of SHUT THE FUCK UP!!
eGadz.