Big talk and little stick: Our North Korean folly

Speak softly and carry a big stick. Or, speak loudly and carry a big stick. Or maybe even speak softly and get by with a small stick. But, for God’s sake, don’t speak loudly and carry a small stick. And yet that’s precisely what President Bush has been doing on the Korean Peninsula issue for two years.

Today North Korea is racing ahead with a plutonium processing operation that should churn out enough plutonium for half-a-dozen warheads in a few short months. Having ruled out war and negotiations, the administration now stands by apparently resigned to the prospect of North Korea becoming a nuclear power.

Let’s recall how this crisis began.
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  thanks to Talking Points Memo