President Obama put North Korea on notice today, warning Pyongyang that if it persists with plans to launch a long-range rocket in the next couple of days, the U.S. will “take appropriate steps to let North Korea know that it can’t threaten the safety and security of other countries with impunity.” Gee, how to parse “appropriate steps to let North Korea know” and “impunity”? Not very scary, Mr. President: surely North Korea already knows with exactly how much impunity it may act-namely, all the impunity in the world. For just as his boss was uttering those semi-tough words, Stephen Bosworth, the U.S. envoy to the six-party talks on North Korean nukes, was announcing that bilateral discussions with the dictatorship are central to the success of any negotiations, and we are prepared to move forward with them, no matter what. In fact, he said, we will be “working very closely with our partners to ensure that after the dust from the missiles has settled a bit (that) we get back to the longer term priority . . . of the six-party (talks).” Now that’s scary.
