IT’S EASY to dismiss Kim Jong Il as a cartoonish lunatic. The Don King-like hair, the goofy glasses, the drab olive jumpsuit, the eccentric habits, the secrecy–Kim looks, and often acts, downright cuckoo. Even as bloodstained dictators go, his Q-rating is abysmal. But never underestimate his wily maneuvering. Pyongyang’s recent announcement that it wields nuclear weapons and is withdrawing from the six-party talks worked in Kim’s favor. It convinced Western chatterers that (1) the North Korean standoff is at a hopeless impasse and (2) George Bush’s policy has been an abject failure.

The latter bears a seed of truth. In his first term, Bush wisely eschewed bilateral deals and correctly highlighted the human rights dimension of the Korean crisis. But he put too much faith in the six-party talks. He never leaned hard enough on China. And intra-administration spats made a muddle of his carrot-and-stick approach. In the end, the Bushies offered an incoherent mix of harsh rhetoric and squishy diplomacy.