President-elect Obama advocates for developing an “international coalition” to handle nuclear North Korea, calls the Six-Party Talks “ad hoc,” and says he supports “sustained, direct, and aggressive diplomacy.” In a September 2008 presidential debate, Obama said a lack of diplomatic engagement with North Korea led the country to significantly increase its nuclear capacity, and said the Bush administration's eventual reengagement with the regime led to "some progress."
Within weeks of Pyongyang’s October 2006 nuclear test, Obama appeared on Meet the Press and said the United States had no leverage over North Korea because of Washington’s refusal to hold bilateral negotiations. He also clarified a passage from his book Audacity of Hope (in which he posed the question “Why invade Iraq and not North Korea or Burma?”) and said he did not consider invading the communist country an option to resolving the nuclear issue.
In May 2005, Obama named North Korea as one of the "biggest proliferation challenges we currently face." Obama has called for the strengthening of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty so that countries like North Korea "that break the rules will automatically face strong international sanctions."
Obama said in September 2008 he believes the United States needs a missile defense system in part because of the nuclear threat North Korea poses.
I have never known a kid whose parents let him curse not turn out to be a knucklehead. Sure there's a lot of difference between a kid and a country, but the principle is essentially the same. Spank the kid while he's still small enough to spank. It sounds to me like there is a substantial number of passive Americans who don't feel that it's worth the effort to escalate anything against the Norks because of the apparent impotence of their weapons.
The above cartoon gives my unadulterated and uncouth opinion on that matter.
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