Wasting Time With Alex

This sounds like a bad deal to me..

Well it looks like we have an agreement with the NKs to stop their nuclear program and they are now ready to comply. Supposedly they will dismantle said program in return for energy subsidies. This sounds a lot like the deal Carter/Albright/Clinton gave us back in the mid 1990s. We all know how well that worked. So we are not building them a light water reactor this time. But didn’t we try to pay the same kind of blackmail only to have the NKs go back to their nuke program practically immediately? We are being told the problem with that first deal was that it was just between the NKs and the US and so when they reneged there was no loss of face or repercussion for them, but because this new deal has 4 additional partners, the dynamics have changed. You mean to tell me that the NKs will now not break the deal for fear China, Russia, Japan or SK might be offended? Please! The Chinese and the Russians would not mind the NKs breaking this agreement the second it is profitable for them. The SKs have gone so soft they would actually defend the NKs breaking the agreement. I guess if I saw what happened to Germany after the Eastern government collapsed and East & West Germany unified, I too would fear the NK collapse and the consequences of a North Korea/South Korea reunification. The only party - other than the US that is - likely to get pissed is Japan, and I for one think the NKs would not care anyway.  What the hell do I know. Maybe this is a brilliant move and it will work out. The NK leadership knows they are on the brink of a total collapse and I would not be surprised this is just to buy them time. On the other hand it buys us time too. Time will tell.