President Obama led a chorus of world leaders hurling patently meaningless condemnation at North Korea yesterday after it launched a long-range missile/satellite into space. Never mind that the only thing newsworthy about this launch is that (after the fifth, brazen attempt) it appears to have been successful.

Moreover, all indications are that the only danger North Korea poses is the irrational fear of imminent nuclear attack it incites every time it test-fires one of its missiles. Never mind that the United States possesses (and can fortify its regional allies with) anti-ballistic missile defenses that could neutralize any such attack.

So instead of stoking such fears, Obama should convene a coalition of the willing among Asia-Pacific countries (APEC) to forge agreement on the following resolution. Significantly, it would not be subject to UN-style veto by any country (namely, China or Russia):

APEC

Recognizing that the United Nations is unable or unwilling to stop North Korea from violating its resolutions (most notably, res. 1718 against conducting nuclear tests or launching ballistic missiles) with impunity;
Finding that these violations pose an untenable threat to the Asia-Pacific region;

Resolves that:

Instead of continuing the feckless practice of bribing North Korea with cash, oil and food to get it to stop these violations, APEC shall henceforth impose the severest possible sanctions, unilaterally;
If, either as a result of misfire or deliberate intent, any of North Korea’s missiles even threatens any APEC country, the United States shall lead the bombardment of all of its nuclear and missile facilities until they are incapable of even setting off firecrackers, let alone launching nuclear missiles.

All else is folly.

Which is why, instead of writing another commentary on this latest North Korea vs. The World Kabuki dance, I’ll simply note that my observations from seven months ago (April 13, 2012) remain every bit as relevant today.

North Korea Commanding World Attention … Again

When you hear President Obama issuing his cease and desist statement to North Korea about testing its missile this week, just bear in mind what iPINIONS noted in 2009:

Obama’s statements were almost identical to ones he issued the month before. They could well have been read from statements his predecessors Bush and Clinton issued throughout their presidencies. For decades, this bilateral relationship has consisted of an improbable tail-wagging-the-dog phenomenon.

More to the point, as I also argued in 2009, Obama and world leaders wasted time at their summit warning Kim that playing with nuclear missiles is not the way to win friends. Dire warnings from perceived enemies only embolden Kim’s unruly behavior—and never amount to anything more than hollow words.

The best way to deal with Kim is to let him test fire his missiles without making it seem like an existential threat. North Korea has the same sovereign right the United States has to test its missiles, and he’ll do so anyway despite global protestations.

Of course, if he does the unthinkable — attacks another country or attempts to sell nuclear weapons to terrorists — then Obama will have no difficulty amassing a coalition, including the Chinese, to take out his little hermit kingdom.”

Obviously, I wrote the above about a North Korea led by the recently deceased Kim Jong-il. His domestic policy amounted to little more than manufacturing conventional weapons to fight a war with South Korea that ended almost 60 years ago. His foreign policy amounted to nothing more than building nuclear weapons to extort (from the United States and other countries) everything from oil to run his military industrial complex and food to feed the privileged among his starving people.

But I could have written the same about a North Korea led by the father (Kim II-sung) who preceded him just as easily as I could write the same about a North Korea now being led by the son (Kim Jong-un) who succeeded him.

This is a country whose military recently had to lower the minimum required height for its soldiers to 4 feet, 9 inches because of chronic malnutrition, the Los Angeles Times reports. One-third of North Korean children are believed to be ‘permanently stunted’ because of a lack of food. Additionally, Amnesty International has reported that crippling food shortages have forced malnourished North Koreans to eat grass and tree bark just to survive.

(The Atlantic Wire, April 12, 2012)

Therefore, you might wonder why North Korea is not just spending hundreds of millions to launch this rocket to “monitor weather patterns,” but also forfeiting over 240,000 tons of food aid from the United States to do so.

Well, its perverse calculation is that a successful launch will give it a much stronger hand to extort tons more money and food, with threats to attack the South or sell nukes to terrorists. It will leverage this when it returns to the negotiating table for patently disingenuous talks about dismantling its nuclear program. And, past being prologue, it is right.

Meanwhile, it is surreal enough that Cuba has survived for 50 years with an economy stuck in 1962 (the year of the U.S. embargo). It is even more so that North Korea has thrived for 60 with an economy stuck in 1953 (the year the Korean War ended).

This is why, despite all of the worldwide Sturm und Drang now surrounding Baby Kim’s testing of yet another missile, it all smacks of a groundhog-day spectacle not worthy of any further or new comment.

UPDATE

Missile test bombs

The following only affirms my dismissive take on this spectacle:

For the new North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, who completed the last step in his hurried ascension to power in Pyongyang on Friday, his government’s failure to put a satellite into orbit is a $1 billion humiliation.

Mr. Kim wanted to mark his ascension to top political power — timed with the country’s biggest holiday in decades, the 100th birthday of his grandfather and North Korean founder, Kim Il-sung — with fireworks, real and symbolic. And the launching of its Kwangmyongsong, or ‘Bright Shining Star,’ satellite was the marquee event.

On Friday, the satellite disintegrated in a different kind of fireworks. The rocket carrying it exploded mid-air about one minute after the liftoff, according to American, South Korean and Japanese officials.

(New York Times, April 13, 2012)

This gives a whole new meaning to the term, minute man, eh?

But Baby Kim is only twenty-something and this was his first time. So instead of reveling in his embarrassment, I say we pat him on the head, let him know that every man suffers the premature “explosion” of his missile at this age, and assure him that things will get better.

Otherwise, this little jerk might really go ballistic and launch sure-fire missiles into South Korea in a cataclysmic attempt to prove his manhood.

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