As the World Yawns Over North Korea's Nuclear Test

Actions speak louder than words, and thus far, there's been no action and quite a few words speaking towards action at some indeterminate point in the future regarding the fallout from North Korea's nuclear test over the holiday weekend.

North Korea has repeatedly violated UN resolutions, and yet all the Security Council could do is put together a statement warning of further sanctions once the Security Council decided to do so.

Kim Il Jung must have laughed when he saw what the UN did, because he had his military fire off some more missiles in open defiance of the UN resolutions. Iran also dismissed calls for more talks on Iran's own nuclear program, which continues spinning along.

UN resolutions aren't worth the paper they're written on, and the rogue regimes know it. They can and will get away with whatever they want because no one is going to stop them. President Obama surely doesn't look like he's up to the task.

President Obama, who has made nuclear disarmament a significant portion of his foreign policy (although who exactly would face the disarmament is up for debate given that Obama has repeatedly called for the US to disarm while ignoring the rogue states like North Korea) was out playing golf on Memorial Day when the news of the nuclear test came down. He issued a strongly worded statement, but then proceeded back to the links to complete his round.

Well, I guess we know what's more important. It's all about the priorities, and I guess he wanted to get his round in, regardless of world events. As Democrats were often more than willing to criticize President Bush on style, it's nice to see them giving President Obama a pass for playing the round regardless of breaking world events.

This is the peril of engagement that Obama has pushed. Six party talks have been a failure, the Agreed Framework was a failure, and it now appears that the Sunshine Policy between the two Koreas should be in doubt as well. Obama is being tested early and often, and the NY Times seems to think that he has few options available to him.

It's time to put the screws to the regime. It means cutting all aid to the regime - including humanitarian shipments. As harsh as that sounds, the regime could pay for the food if it chose to buy it on the open market rather than spend all of its energy on developing nuclear weapons. Of course, that's the point - Kim is using the human rights agenda against the rest of the world by holding his nation hostage to his insane economic agenda. He can devote all of his nation's energy to the military program and ignore the humanitarian crisis because the rest of the world, including the US is more than willing to provide food aid and fuel aid to the North Koreans. That frees up resources for the North Koreans to work on their nuclear program.

Smart sanctions haven't worked, and the regime ignores the Security Council on a regular basis. More talking isn't going to help either, given that the talking has enabled North Korea to stockpile weapons and continue perfecting the nuclear weapons in its arsenal.