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North Korea: Red-Headed Stepchild

<b>North Korea Wants A Little Attention Too</b> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2008/8/26/officialwinner128642717390990684.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="155" src="http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2008/8/26/officialwinner128642717390990684.jpg" width="200" /></a> </div> <b>Iran</b> is all about the nukes. Do they have them? What is their intention with them? Will they stop developing them? Will our "allies" support action against them? Diplomacy, sanctions or force? Will China go along with any of them? Will Israel be forced to take the nuclear installations out unilaterally? You get the idea. United Nations, IAEA and the Geneva Conference, it is all Iran all the time. <b>Afghanistan</b> is all about the troop surge. General McCrystal says that we need one in order to avoid mission failure. President Obama is only now arranging consensus among his non-military, more political advisiors knowing for some time this decision was coming. The liberal left wants none of a surge, while one prominent Democrat, Senator Dianne Feinstein from of all places California has just signed on <b>for</b> it. She recognizes the impact pulling out could have on Pakistan as well as the fact that President Obama chose McCrystal as his expert on the ground. <b>Will he, won't he and when will he?</b> Troops already in the theater need a decision one way or the other. Now we have <b>North Korea</b>. Remember them? One third of the Axis of Evil. Nuclear armed, run by an unstable dictator with one of its borders one of the most dangerous places on earth. Not that many months ago North Korea and Kim Jung-Il had the headlines. Test firing missiles and setting off an underground nuclear test. The world was focused on the Korean Peninsula just as it is now focused on Iran and Afghanistan. What is a deranged leader to do to make the world pay attention? <b>This rhetorical dance with North Korea is getting very tiresome.</b> On October 1st in a letter to the U.N. North Korea said that dismantling its nuclear arms was "unthinkable even in a dream." On October 5th, while meeting with the Chinese, North Korea said they were willing do resume nuclear dismanteling talks. October 10th there was noise out of Japan, South Korea and China about restarting the six nation talks. These problems, along with the Taliban violence in nuclear Pakistan, provide some huge challeges for the world community with few obvious solutions. Sane people negotiating with insane people is not going to provide any solution that has staying power. The diplomatic overtures are all well and good, but are only fluff to keep up the appearance of making goodfaith attempts to deal with these regimes. The actual outcome I fear will involve force, becuase diplomacy and sanctions are a joke to them. In the meantime, North Korea got itself back into the discussion.
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You Think The Economy's A Problem? How About These Guys?

From The Political and Financial Markets Commentator at http://politicsandfinance.blogspot.com

Thursday, February 5, 2009

You Think The Economy's A Problem? How About These Guys?


Economy, Economy, Economy - But That Ain't All

Oh yeah, do we have economic problems that are consuming us all on a daily basis. But let us not forget or foreign policy problems.

We have the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, which since the election we have not heard much about (could just be a coincidence or could it be that the media reporting on the negatives no longer has a reason to report).

But we also have two of the members of the Axis of Evil flexing some military muscle, perhaps as a test of the United States resolve under a new administration, and perhaps because they are an incredible danger to us all.

Iran and North Korea

Who can forget these guys? As reported by Reuters on Tuesday, North Korea is preparing to test its' longest range ballistic missile as the tensions with South Korea escalate. This development is a result of some actions by South Korea that are considered provocative by the North, prompting Kim Jong-il and the government to announce that the Korean peninsula is on the brink of war.

Meanwhile Iran and it's leader President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad launched a home grown satellite into space that has technology that is very similar to that used in a ballistic missile. Iran says that the technology is for peaceful purposes, and who wouldn't believe him?

While being focused on the economy as well as on staffing his administration and the distractions that comes with it (damn taxes), our new President had best not forget that these are potentially very serious foreign policy events that have to be addressed and not back burnered because they have not bubbled over yet.

Let's be proactive instead of the typical stance of reactive.

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