North Korea Part II

The headline of this article on CNN caught my eye this morning: “N. Korea Sees US Pressure as an Act of War”. The official quote from North Korea’s Foreign Ministry:

"If the U.S. keeps pestering us and increases pressure, we will regard it as a declaration of war and will take a series of physical corresponding measures."

North Korea is not getting the reaction they wanted from their nuclear tests, so they’re upping the ante. They either want the US to make a dumb move and win some public approval, and then bargaining rights to get more free stuff, or they want to force the US into bilateral talks. North Korea is trying to force opinion against the US by saying things like, “the issue of future nuclear tests is linked to U.S. policy toward our country.” You can tell they don’t want war (though a North Korean diplomat did offer this gem, "we hope the situation will be resolved before an unfortunate incident of us firing a nuclear missile comes") they just want more leverage in bargaining. Also from the Foreign Ministry statement:

"Even though we conducted the nuclear test because of the U.S., we still remain committed to realizing the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula through dialogue and negotiations."

It would almost be funny if it weren’t such a volatile situation to everyone in the region and the suffering North Koreans. I remain hopeful that the situation will be resolved without anything blowing up (there is still speculation that perhaps the test wasn’t a nuclear warhead at all, or a dud that shows they still are not quite there yet), but nothing changes the state of the North Korean people. They are being held hostage by a crazed dictator waving nuclear weapons in the world’s face. Kim Jong Il knows the world has sympathy for his people and he uses this to gain even more from the world. As I said before, I hope this is just a mind game, but also one that we can win, not just for our sake, but the sake of the Korean people.

Update: Monkey see, monkey do...Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said this regarding Iran's nuclear program during a televised speech Wednesday: "these three or four countries are bullying and have no right to interfere in these issues and the Security Council has no right to interfere." Guess he thought Kim Jong Il had a good angle.