Almost from its very beginnings, the Obama Administration has seemed at a loss about how to respond to North Korea. In his inauguration speech, President Obama told “those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent” that he would “extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”
On April 5th, Kim Jong-il delivered his answer, in the form of a long-range missile test. In May, he conducted his second nuclear test. That same year, Pyongyang was caught shipping arms to Hamas and Hezbollah. In 2010, it sank a South Korean warship and shelled a South Korean fishing village. It tried to assassinate human rights activists and defectors. It assisted Bashar Assad’s chemical weapons program. Its treatment of its own people has become more brutal and repressive. In 2013, it carried out its third nuclear test. And on January 6th, it carried out its fourth.
