North Korea has ordered its people to prepare for a protracted war against the United States, issuing guidelines on evacuating to underground bunkers with weapons, food and portraits of leader Kim Jong-il.
We're starting to detect a pattern here, yes? Bush calls out the "Axis of Evil", invades one based on stovepiped bunkum, and the other two....accelerate their nuclear capabilities.
You have to give the Bush claque credit -- they insisted on a bold gamble that, had it worked according to plan, would quite literally have changed the world for the better in a most radical fashion. The gamble was, you take out the low-hanging fruit, and the others capitulate. Since they're tyrannies, and tyrannies almost always face internal pressure to democratize, it's a fair bet that Kim and the mullahs would have collapsed pretty quickly after capitulation. This is a very idealistic gamble, and what are the neo-cons except reformed '60s liberals (thus retaining their woolly-headed idealism)?
Problem is, they forgot to come up with a Plan B, just like with Iraq. They believed their own hype, they think every culture is so insanely jealous of us, that they're all just itching to transform overnight and start emulating. Well, no, it doesn't quite work that way. It's never worked that way, not without a Marshall Plan level of incentive. People don't negotiate very honestly with a gun to their head; they may temporarily capitulate, but only so long as they're in direct danger.
The only thing remotely resembling success in this regard is Libya, but even then, let's remember that their nuclear program was barely begun in the first place, and it appears that they had gotten what little they had from the same nuke bazaar that Iran and N. Korea did -- Abdul Qadeer Khan, of the Pakistani nuclear program. Khan was officially pardoned by Musharraf, and Pakistan refuses to let the US interview him. So, you know, that sort of mitigates the success there.
Feel safer?
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