With all of George Bush's huffing and puffing about North Korea's nuclear bingo
game, the administration has shown that, well, it is best at huffing and
puffing. Iran has clearly learned from Pyongyang that the best way to win in
this world is to talk.
The Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea
(beware of countries with overly long names) has been involved in so many rogue
operations that have fed its military (and only its military) that it shows no
sign of let-up. No sign. This is the game that Dr. Strangelove/Dr. Khan also
played, and both North Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran have been his
customers. In the meantime, he has gone unpunished for his proliferating
nuclear crimes in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, which is not a republic or,
for that matter, a state.
Negotiations, the criminal rogue states have
learned, is the way to survive. Negotiations ad infinitum and ad nauseum. And it's not only the atomic criminals. It's also the routine murderers
and terrorists. That's why Sudan wants to negotiate and why Syria wants to
negotiate. If negotiations is a goal in itself for the West, why shouldn't the
rogue states take advantage of this little peculiarity? It costs them nothing
and wins them time, at the least.
I know that John Bolton, former
American ambassador to the United Nations, is a b