New "Choreography" On North Korea

From The Weekly Standard:

Do you ever get the sense that if North Korea actually used a nuclear weapon in an offensive attack that Chris Hill and the State Department would still be trying to make a deal?

In response to the latest provocation from the North Koreans, Hill and his colleagues are proposing a new "choreography" for the futile negotiations. Dancing seems somehow appropriate at this stage, given the stories about Hill's collegial drinking with his North Korean counterparts and his friendly toasts to honor them. ("We pulled out all the stops," one US diplomat told author Mike Chinoy about the festivities.)

It's hardly worth going back over all of the twists and turns of US-North Korean nuclear diplomacy in order to look at the Bush administration's current embarrassing position. The pattern has been set, with relatively minor interruptions of sanity, since 1994: the US makes tough-sounding threats, North Korea cheats/provokes/lies, the US expresses disappointment and then offers second-chances accompanied by generous concessions.

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My Comment: I could not have written a better post. A must read.