
Fearing the possibility of a shooting war with nuclear-armed North Korea, the Obama administration has decided to make every effort possible to appease the Stalinist/Kimist state. Hence, Washington's rush to publicly assure Pyongyang that the United States has no plans to shoot down the regime's long-range rocket--a Taepodong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching Alaska and Hawaii--unless it approaches U.S. territory.
Hence, too, the appointment of a part-time envoy to manage, or contain, the Korean crisis. Click
here for the story.
In this case, containment is code for appeasement. The Obama administration does not believe that a solution to the North Korean nuclear nightmare is attainable, barring a miraculous development, such as a Chinese-sponsored military coup in the North. The most practical approach, according to the administration, is to try to manage or contain the problem with an array of concessions and bribes (short of sacrificing South Korea or Japan).
The fact that appeasement has failed to prevent North Korea from developing nuclear arms and long-range rockets--and exporting these technologies--does seem to matter all that much to the U.S. In Obama's Washington, appeasement is the order of the day; and apologizing for alleged American sins, from providing guns and markets for Mexican drug cartels to carbon emissions, is all the rage. The administration is bent on deescalating the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan--the minimal troop surge there is a cover for a Vietnamization-style policy aimed at facilitating an eventual withdrawal--demilitarizing the titanic struggle with radical Islam, and narrowly redefining the conflict to combating Al Qaeda, the only Islamist enemy that for the foreseeable future is likely to remain outside the zone of acceptable diplomatic engagement.
Seven-and-a-half years after the worst-ever attacks on American soil--by Islamist terrorists--the Bush administration's misnamed War on Terror is basically a lost cause. Islamists have been emboldened and encouraged everywhere, even in Europe and the United States; America's strategic ally, Israel, is on a countdown to conflict with North Korea's partner in nuclear crime, Islamist Iran; and American coastal cities and other targets are potential targets for nuclear, biological, and chemical attacks--and swarming raids--by Islamist terrorist organizations.
Overwhelmed by the financial crisis, the Obama administration is bent on appeasing Iran, resigned to living with the monstrous mullahocracy, even in the face of its menacing nuclear and missile programs. The administration is also resigned to coexisting with a rising Islamist tide, hoping to find ways of engaging and reconciling with so-called moderate Islamists (a concept akin to negotiating with moderate Nazis), including relatively reform-minded members of the Iranian political establishment and supposedly more compliant elements of Afghanistan's resurgent, medieval Taliban. Regime change in Iran is out of the question, as is defeating the Taliban.
- Andre Pachter
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Obama administration is also concerned about developments in Saudi Arabia, where interior minister Prince Nayef has been promoted to second deputy prime minister, a position that makes him a potential successor to the throne in place of the incumbent Crown Prince defense minister, Prince Sultan, who is dying of colon cancer. The 76-year-old Nayef is both militantly anti-Israel--which he views as the leading source of instability in the Middle East--and anti-Iran, which he sees as the fountainhead of Shiite radicalism and insurrection threatening Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries. Nayef, who has been the Saudi Kingdom's main man for fighting and also covertly dealing with Al Qaeda and associated groups in the Saudi religious establishment, is likely to compete with Iran for influence over Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization that is committed to Israel's destruction.
The Obama administration understands this, seeing it as further proof that Islamism is not a monolith, and thus a viable target for diplomatic initiatives of one kind or another. The administration also hopes that a Saudi Arabia with more credibility among Islamists will be able to play a constructive role in influencing the Taliban and containing Pakistan--a nuclear power in danger to falling to the Inter Services Intelligence agency and other pro-Islamist forces. Click
here for a report on the ISI's support for Al Qaeda and the Taliban.