What’s so bad about Kim’s latest offer?: “It would be worth Bush’s while to consider the possibility that Kim’s desire for a non-aggression pact is sincere and his desire for nuclear weapons, short of such a pact, might be rational. Bush, after all, listed North Korea, along with Iraq and Iran, as a member of the ‘axis of evil’. He pointedly refuses to exclude military force as a possible way to deal with North Korea’s threat. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, a few months ago, sent F-117s to the U.S. base in South Korea and B-1s to Guam as an explicit counterthreat.” — Fred Kaplan, Slate.

Nicholas Kristof makes a similar argument in his op-ed piece in today’s New York Times. Both point out that Kim may indeed be blackmailing the U.S, but that he may have us over a barrel. Even if armed with 1950’s-vintage Soviet weaponry, taking on the North Korean army on the ground would be formidable. Pushing them to use their nuclear ace-in-the-hole would be, of course, devastating, and easy to do. Destroying North Korea’s nuclear capabilities with our ordnance would shower fallout all over the peninsula.