Someone in North Korea has a great sense of applied irony. Today, the North Korean government demanded that the US withdraw all its nukes from the Korean peninsula. The thing is, the US claims it withdrew all the nukes when Bush’s daddy was president.
I can just see that North Korean strategist, rubbing his hands together in glee, demanding the establishment of a UNMOVIC-type inspection team to verify that there are no nukes left in South Korea.
Washington has already been forced to bluster its way around the question of why North Korea should be treated differently than Iraq in regards to weapons of mass destruction. It has also been forced into the possibility of talks which will likely reinstate the “Agreed Framework” which the Clinton Administration settled 1n 1994 — and which the Bushies have called “appeasement.”
What twisted logic will they use to deny inspectors access to the grounds of the US Embassy in Seoul or to the naval ships and Army bases around the DMZ? How will Germany and France and Russia and China — all frustrated by the US seeming refusal to wait for international agreement before attacking Iraq — respond to the US scoffing at any demand to open its facilities to international inspectors.
