Celebrating North Korea's nukes

One anecdote Bob Woodward shares in State of Denial is that then-governor Bush
was really annoyed when people tried to talk to him about North Korea. I know the feeling. "Everybody is talking to me about North Korea," he's supposed to have said, but "why should I care?" But no one ever accused the guy of being overly nuanced, even if they've tried to claim that he's not a complete imbecile.

Here comes the disturbing part. As with Iraq and Iran, other White House officials seem to be pleased with the report that North Korea has conducted an underground nuclear test. Why? Because it's worked so well in the Middle East, apparently.

Yet a number of senior U.S. officials have said privately that they would welcome a North Korean test, regarding it as a clarifying event that would forever end the debate within the Bush administration about whether to solve the problem through diplomacy or through tough actions designed to destabilize North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's grip on power.

Now U.S. officials will push for tough sanctions at the U.N. Security Council, and are considering a raft of largely unilateral measures, including stopping and inspecting every ship that goes in and out of North Korea.

I predict a new era of peace and international cooperation as the rest of the world finally realizes that unilateralism is the new diplomacy.