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Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
Khan was pardoned. Fair enough, since it is pretty apparent he didn't do anything other than cover Musharaf's ass anyway.
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I know. In my own head I was ruing that all this proliferation went on and no one was punished for it, thus the reference to a gov resort....aw, if I need to write this much to expain myself I should just get an interpreter.
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But, whether we are engaging NK or not, China will be, and it is, frankly, China that can (and needs to) apply serious pressure there - the US's most useful role is to keep saying "we're not buying the same shit in a new pot, thanks" so the local actors who have some real levers to pull can do so but blame the US for the hard line. On the other hand, giving China the space to flex muscle on its own (without public talks with the US hanging around) may also be a good move since they may feel freer to be forceful if they may then be able to take credit on their own instead of being seen as a tool in a US-led effort. China wants desperately to be perceived as a responsible and serious international citizen to be reckoned with, and they've pretty clearly gotten the message that this is their big chance to show they can play with the big boys and get results.
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Kind of dovetailing with my post to bilmore above, I saw some quotes last week where some Chinese mouthpieces were suggesting that since we were...not so correct on Iraq's WMDs, we might be wrong about the extent of NK's program as well. I'm not sure that really holds water in light of the harder evidence we have on NK and NK's own pronouncements, but it does seem to indicate that China might not want to deal so harshly with its neighbor.
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