Josh Marshall has some comments on Korea.

There's been a lot of talk in the last several days about whether North Korea is a bigger threat than Iraq, whether there's an inconsistency between the policies the administration is pursuing with regard to each, and so forth.

These questions ignore the big issue, one that's being inexcusably ignored in the American press.

This entire crisis -- and it's foolish to pretend it's not a crisis -- is an administration screw-up of mammoth proportions. The administration is trying to portray this as just another crisis that happened on their watch. But that woefully understates its own responsibility for the situation we're now in.
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Also read what Josh has to say here and here.

Outfoxed by North Korea

One political reminder from this episode is the danger that can come from tough talk. When using words as weapons, a leader must be prepared to back up his rhetoric with force. The president's nomination of North Korea as a member of the "Axis of Evil" in his last State of the Union message now looks like a bluff that is being called. And the outcome of the administration's diplomacy is that we are preparing to fight a war with a country that might eventually acquire nuclear weapons, while another country is closing in on the ability to go into mass production.
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South Korea, Once a Solid Ally, Now Poses Problems for the U.S.

But now South Korea has become one of the Bush administration's biggest foreign policy problems. Years of resentments over a variety of issues are boiling over in Seoul in the form of demonstrations against the United States and pronouncements by the departing and arriving presidents challenging American policies on dealing with North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
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