The Funny Pages
Thursday, June 26, 2008 at 10:01AM Rarely is the front page of a newspaper the place for laughs, but today's New York Times is a noteworthy exception. I laughed out loud when I read the headline, "U.S. To Take North Korea Off Terror List."
What's so funny, you may ask? North Korea, you may recall, is a member of George W. Bush's famous Axis of Evil, along with Iran and Iraq. Bush coined the term in a 2002 State of the Union address to emphasize to the American public how dangerous these nations are and how important it is that we be tough with them (read: go to war). Now, suddenly the Axis is one member smaller, and not because we crushed them with nukes, but because we negotiated an agreement with them.
That's right, negotiated. Negotiated. Let's all say it together: ne-GO-ti-ated.
As in, we talked to them for a long time, and they agreed to back off on their nuclear enrichment program. No less than Mr. Bush himself says that the verbal agreements in place could greatly improve tensions in East Asia: “This can be a moment of opportunity for North Korea. If it continues to make the right choices it can repair its relationship with the international community.”
Simply amazing what diplomacy can do when you give it a chance.
The rest of this essay writes itself. If this approach worked with North Korean dictator Kim Jung-Il, widely regarded as one of the most unprincipled and brutal dictator in the world, why wouldn't it have worked with Saddam Hussein? Why won't it work with Iran? What excuse could anyone possibly give me for the war in Iraq now that would dissuade me from believing we did it (1) for oil, and (2) because the Bush administration thought it could win the 2004 election if we were at war.
The irony is galling. We had to invade Iraq over WMDs that didn't exist, and succeeded in cutting a deal with North Korea over WMDs that probably do. Almost 5,000 Americans dead, 30,000 wounded, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead, and over 2 million refugees now homeless because Bush said diplomacy was not an option.
We have all known somebody in our lives who always knows better, the hardheaded fool who has to do things his own way no matter what anybody says, and who, after everything else fails finally does what people told him to do from the start and he succeeds at last.
There is nothing to do but laugh at them. It beats crying.
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Reader Comments (3)
Anonymous (if that IS your real name): I would have no wisdom to dole out if I had never made a hardheaded decision myself. Thanks for noticing.
But seriously, if I may be for a moment, I do not recall ever making a mistake that killed several hundred thousand people. Maybe I am forgetting a few alcohol-dazed nights in college though.