The Bush Administration’s North Korea policy has yielded its nuclear fruit.
For years, instead of engaging in serious diplomacy, Bush preferred to bully and to namecall, as when he so diplomatically referred to Kim Jong Il as a pygmy.

When Colin Powell wanted the United States to begin bilateral talks with North Korea, Bush dressed him down.

Perversely, the neocons seem almost as pleased by North Korea’s nuke as Kim is.
And Bush refused to agree to a promise not to destroy North Korea, so Kim, long described as erratic and irrational, did the rational thing: He hurried up and got himself a nuclear weapon to try to deter Bush.

North Korea’s test is a highly unwelcome one. But it doesn’t change the basic facts.

Back in March, when the Bush Administration published its new National Security Strategy document, it noted that North Korea “continues to destabilize its region and defy the international community, now boasting a small nuclear arsenal and an illicit nuclear program in violation of its international obligations.”

Nothing fundamental has changed since then, except—as Jon Stewart noted—North Korea now has one fewer nuclear weapon.

Perversely, the neocons seem almost as pleased by North Korea’s nuke as Kim is.

“For some in the Bush Administration, the nuclear test is cause for celebration,” writes John Feffer, editor of The Future of U.S.-Korean Relations. “The coterie around Dick Cheney rejoices at the growing divide between North Korea and China, the more aggressive military and foreign policy of Japan, and compromised efforts of South Korea to engage the North. . . . An amplified North Korean threat works wonders on Capitol Hill and with our allies to push missile defense, more military spending, and the like.”

Republican hawks, such as John McCain, David Frum, and those that perch over at National Review, all are shrieking now for a U.N. Security Council resolution under Chapter 7 that would authorize the United States to use coercive measures against North Korea. They like nothing more than to act as the world’s enforcer.

But this would risk sending brinkmanship right over the edge.

To goad Kim Jong Il into a military confrontation could result in hundreds of thousands of deaths on the Korean peninsula and more in Japan.

Even at this stage, substantive, bilateral negotiations represent the best available option.

But Bush and Cheney don’t want any part of that.

They alternate between believing that North Korea is about to implode and fantasizing that they should take Kim out.

They still live in fantasy land.

And even Kim’s nuclear test can’t snap them out of it.

Matthew Rothschild has been with The Progressive since 1983. He keeps a running tally of civil liberties infringements in his "McCarthyism Watch." In the January 2002 issue he writes about The New McCarthyism.