Vladimir Putin, rule of Russia, believes that sanctions would be worthless for correcting North Korea’s behavior, according to CNN:
But Putin, speaking in China on Tuesday, cautioned against “military hysteria” and said that the only way to resolve the crisis was through diplomacy.
He warned that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has calculated that the survival of his regime depends on its development of nuclear weapons. Kim had seen how western intervention in Iraq had ended in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein after which the country was ravaged by war, Putin warned, and Kim was determined not to suffer the same fate.
“Saddam Hussein rejected the production of weapons of mass destruction, but even under that pretense, he was destroyed and members of his family were killed,” Putin said.
“The country was demolished and Saddam Hussein was hanged. Everyone knows that and everyone in North Korea knows that.” …
But speaking at the closure of the BRICs summit in Beijing — which hosted the leaders of Brazil, India, China and South Africa — Putin said that while Russia condemned North Korea’s latest actions, imposing any kind of sanctions would be “useless and ineffective.” Kim would rather starve his people than see his regime overthrown, he said.
Yes, it’s Putin, but the last bit rings true, especially concerning Hussein. Thus, while Joseph DeThomas’ post on 38 North is much more respectable, he seems to have forgotten that one aspect. He recommends a combination of stronger enforcement of sanctions as well as a stronger game of diplomacy, and after some specific recommendations he writes:
Orchestrating this diplomacy will be one of the most complex challenges of the past 50 years. It is unclear whether the US State Department—suffering from several levels of missing leadership, low morale and persistent and unhelpful interference from the White House—is up to the task. But a way will have to be found to perform it if there is to be success on this issue.
Probably nicknamed Bush & Cheney.
Joseph doesn’t really go far enough in recognizing the utter inadequacy of the Trump Administration, because, in retrospect, the problems didn’t start there. They started with the Bush II Administration’s decision to trump up (forgive me) a reason to destroy Saddam Hussein, who at this point had been reduced to a two-bit blowhard who had given up his weapons of mass destruction in exchange for guarantees of survival.
But those guarantees were backed by the US government, and were abrogated, to use John Bolton’s term, through lies and deceit.
And – no doubt I repeat myself – the birds of mendacity have come home to roost. Kim Jong-un understands that the US government is not trustworthy, and that, in his mind, it’s prudent to be a porcupine that can inflict a lot of damage on a predator. Promises aren’t enough, but a long, pointy spear may be.
There’s a real moral lesson in all this, but no doubt a historian will do a better – or more objective – job figuring it out than I will. To me, though, this smacks of provincialism, religious egocentrism, and the delusion that God favors you, and thus you can do no wrong.
No. We’re getting an object lesson in how badly these attitudes can go wrong, and the sad thing is that those who voted for Bush probably don’t realize just how much this is their philosophy’s fault. Some of it is the difficulty of drawing lessons from international incidents, since they can be hard to comprehend if you’re not in the Foreign Service. It’s even harder when you practice the hubris of being the center of the Universe. And it’s bloody well impossible when you are not made to see honest analysis, but instead pandering by the right wing media pursuing power and wealth with little regard to the national interest.
