North Korea's risky bargain for attention from West

Why would North Korea be trying to start a catastrophic war with South Korea and the United States? That must be what Western leaders are wondering after Pyongyang flatly rejected findings of an investigation by five nations that blamed North Korea for the sinking of a South Korean warship in March. "War may break out at any time," North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations told the UN Security Council on Tuesday, after accusing South Korea of "fabricating" the findings, according to Cable News Network (CNN). Of course, there's a simple answer to the question. It wouldn't be, bombastic rhetoric to the contrary. What countries say is not always what they mean, at least not exactly. North Korea had to say something in response to the very public accusations and pressure for economic sanctions by the United States, although outright denial might not have been the best course of action in the face of damning evidence presented to the Security Council, and 46 dead sailors. "If the Security Council releases any documents against us, condemning or pressuring us ... then myself as diplomat, I can do nothing," North Korean Ambassador Sin Son Ho said, according to CNN. "The follow-up measures will be carried out by our military forces." But North Korea's military is no match for South Korea's, and certainly not for United States forces pledged to support Seoul. Any North Korean attack would be a true suicide bombing. So, the threat of war is a hollow one, perhaps designed either distract attention from Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program or to cover for a tragic mistake by North Korea's financially stretched and, obviously, questionably competent military. Maybe North Korea is just posturing to accept emergency food assistance again this winter, only this time as a peace offering instead of as charity. Or, maybe, Pyongyang thinks it can make Western nations forget about financial sanctions that are sure to be adopted to punish North Korea for the sinking of the Cheonan. But Pyongyang would receive a lot more assistance from the West if it stopped all the pretenses and started behaving like a modern country interested in cooperation with the rest of the world.

Biden says China will sign on to Iran sanctions

Say whatever you want to about U.S. Vice President Joe Biden -- and, indeed, many people say a lot of things that are not complimentary -- he does tell it exactly how it is. Of course, you're not always sure if he's speaking with the approval of U.S. President Barack Obama, the head of the government, or if he's just revealed something that would have been better kept unsaid, but his comments do have the ring of truth. That is a rare quality in a politician these days. So when Biden told the NBC-TV program "Meet the Press" on Sunday that the United States expected China to agree with international efforts to impose punitive economic sanctions against Iran for refusing to end its nuclear weapons program, he was making perfect sense. "We have the support of everyone from Russia to Europe," Biden told NBC, according to the Reuters international news service. "I believe we'll get the support of China to continue to impose sanctions on Iran to isolate them, to make it clear that in fact they cannot move forward." China, which depends on Iran for oil imports, is the fifth veto power on the UN Security Council and must agree before international sanctions can be imposed or enforced. Iran, for its part, continues to deny trying to build a nuclear weapon and insists its nuclear technology development is intended only for peaceful purposes. But it's illogical for the world's third largest reserves of oil to seek nuclear power for energy -- it has oil. Iran's pursuit of nuclear technology only makes sense if it seeks nuclear weapons. And China certainly understands the threat to the world economic order, in which it is just now getting the upper hand, if an unstable head of state like Iran's Mahmoud Ahmedinejad figures out how to build nuclear bombs.

Announcement on Europe missile shield sounds like appeasement

Is anyone else troubled by the latest moves by the United States to appear impotent in its dealings with Russia? That's the effect of the Obama adminstration's impending decision to scrub plans to build a missile-defense system protecting Poland and the Czech Republic before Russia fulfills its treaty obligations in Georgia. The White House will announce its decision to forego the Bush administration-proposed system as early as this week, according to the Wall Street Journal newspaper. Moscow apparently was outraged by the proposal, which it believed was directed at its intercontinental ballistic missiles despite U.S. assurances that it was intended to counterbalance the perceived threat from an increasingly radicalized and militarily sophisticated Iran. The Iranians are developing nuclear technology and are expected to have missiles capable of reaching European capitals and close U.S. ally Israel by 2015. But Washington needs Moscow's cooperation at the UN Security Council to impose new sanctions against Iran if Tehran refuses to give up its nuclear program at six-nation negotiations planned in October. The Obama adminstration denies such linkage, the Journal said, and maintains that it is dropping the missile shield after a reassessment of the Iranian threat. Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a speech last month that the missile programs of Iran and North Korea "are not there yet," according to the Journal. "We believed that the emergence of the intercontinental ballistic missile would come much faster than it did," Cartwright said. "The reality is, it has not come as fast as we thought it would come." The Bush administration-proposed system would have included a radar installation in the Czech Republic and 10 missiles in Poland.