The greatest contribution the U.S. can make to North Korea’s calculated and purposely orchestrated global nuclear “crisis” is for U.S. UN Ambassador Susan Rice to simply walk into the Security Council chamber today and request total adjournment on the issue, and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon send everyone home.
The “cycle of dictator tantrum” must be brought to an end. Just as a child tantrums when they want attention, Kim Jong-il has perfected the adult variant. Not demanding candy, but rather relevance….and food/fuel.
Mark Colvin of ABC Radio News recently stated “….the North Koreans have said in recent months that if they start talking with the US again it has to be on the basis of the North being recognized as a nuclear power. And it's happy to sit down with Washington and discuss arms control issues as two, equal, nuclear powers.”
The way to end these relentless tantrums which ridiculously and unnecessarily distract the entire world, is to give Kim Jong-il none (i.e. relevance). Don’t treat North Korea as a nuclear power, much less “equals”. For Kim Jong-il to go the way of the dodo bird, requires stopping his metaphoric and real food supply (global recognition and “nuclear crisis” generated fuel/food concessions for his people).
Some will say (or yell) “well what about the nukes?”. Yeah, what about them? They’re just paper tiger window dressing on a huge ego scam.
Kim has already bankrupted the country to divert inordinate amounts of desperately needed financial and material resources to produce a few nuclear bombs, all at his people’s significant personal expense and living standard. He’s at the economic breaking point to produce anymore, and underlying the public support face, the population too wants no more of the regime. And since he’s a survivalist and knows any nuclear weapon use would bring immediate and massive destruction upon him and his regime, he won’t use them. He only externally survives if he doesn’t use them, and only internally survives by boasting he will (use them), and securing food/fuel concessions. His is a totally hollow threat, so call his bluff.
Convening a special Security Council session gives him what he craves (i.e. recognition and relevance). In fact, in total passive fashion, the UN Security Council should simply vote to ignore Kim Jong-il and North Korea and promptly adjourn the session….and vote a resolution to never vote another North Korean resolution.
Forget provocative, threatening sanctions and the like. They only help Kim Jong-il play the victim card with his constituents. The country is already economically depressed, and therefore not really vulnerable to sanctions anyway. And all he does then when they’re imposed is prey on his people’s nationalistic pride, portraying sanctions as an act of war or an assault upon Mother North Korea and the North Korean people. There’s therefore no need (or value) for sanctions. In fact, they only exacerbate the problem and make the situation worse.
Kim is already well on his way to political ruin visavis economic collapse, and he knows it and why he’s provocatively testing nukes and launching missiles. Not to prep for using them against another nation, but rather his perceived “cry wolf” trump card to secure critically needed food and fuel concessions for his struggling population from a manipulation prone global community in exchange for momentary cessation of “nuclear saber rattling”. This is tantamount to appeasement and one very good lesson history teaches, and Neville Chamberlain (former British PM in 1938 who signed over the Sudetenland to Germany) would attest to better than anyone, is never appease a dictator.
Rather than allow his people see him as a victim, which he wants, let them see him for what he is, a globally reviled dictator bent on allocating desperately needed country resources away from the North Korean people for his own selfish personal ambitions in the form of his ego-driven nuclear program, which only compounds their own personal struggles.
Therefore, when Kim Jong-il announces he’s going to test a nuke, rather than the global community reacting per his script in predictable panic fashion, and screaming “Oh My God, Let’s Rally All The World Leaders!!”, the world should simply take a very laid back, yawning “so what” approach”, and calmly say “go ahead Kim, we dare you” and keep saying “go ahead”, until he does what a military strike will fail to do, depletes his entire small inventory of nuclear weapons with test after test, following globally illegitimatized tantrum after tantrum.
Simply put, let Kim Jong-il punch himself out.
Bottom line, it’s time to turn this chronic global problem (annoyance) into a permanent solution.
The cure is to treat the situation as a disciplined parent would a spoiled child, and without employing 21st century military technology/action, global diplomacy, sanctions, UN meetings, newspaper headlines, etc., simply say “Kim, we’re not going to talk to you until you stop the tantrums. We’re ignoring you (and we mean it)”…..and then let his own destitute people rise up and inevitably turn on him for the North Korean leadership fix the global community has eagerly long sought but failed to secure.
A clear policy case to float like a butterfly and “don’t” sting like a bee…and by all means, ignore that annoying buzzing noise.
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