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October 8, 2006
Confused Americans for Truth - North Korea Says It May Blink
The latest news is that North Korea will consider backing off from testing its nuclear bomb if the United States agrees to bilateral talks.
I suppose Kim Jong-Il is pleased that a statement with so many conditionals in it would be considered a top news story. Still, you have to wonder at the reason he would make such a request.
The United States wants multi-lateral talks. This is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, in a multi-lateral negotiation, you have to get a lot more people to agree on any deal, and the other parties tend to be more weak-willed than we are. On the other hand, if the deal goes against North Korea, you have more countries participating in the punishment.
I suspect that Kim wants the unilateral talks because he did so well in the 1994 deal with Jimmy Carter, That particular deal was another of those classic agreements in which we give the bad guys money right now in exchange for a promise that they'll be nicer people in the future. A series of these would be enough to keep Kim living in luxury for decades.
See, you have to stop looking at this from the point of view of humans dealing with humans. Kim sees himself as a hungry fox, and the United States keeps sending rabbits. From that point of view, a single rabbit is a snack, but a bunch of rabbits could gang up and cause trouble. What we need to do is convince Kim that the United States has left its rabbit days behind. Come to think of it, we need to convince everybody we've left our rabbit days behind.
A really good way to do this would be to send the anti-war party packing next month. Even a lunatic has to know that a Republican Congress backing a Republican President would not send Jimmy Carter on a diplomatic mission again. If the Democrats actually lose ground in November, Kim is going to have to think twice about American resolve, and that goes double for the terrorists.
It's only one step, but at least it's a step in the right direction.
Respectfully submitted,
Ferdinand T. Cat
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