Another Victory for Appeasement

There goes North Korea again, leading the perplexed world around by its nose, flicking its disdain of 'international obligations', as though that culture of paranoid defiance owes a polite international obligation to anyone. China sits complacently by, awaiting what will be, while the European Union, the United States and the United Nations wring their options toward yet another unworkable series of sanctions.

Nothing has yet been fully revealed; although analysts feel fairly confident that the payload carried by the rocket - which North Korea claims to be have been a satellite meant to be launched into outer space - fell into the Pacific along with the debris from the rocket. Nevertheless, the rocket did take off, and some experts feel it to have been as powerful as the one China launched in 1970.

Japan, South Korea and the United States are calling for swift retaliatory action against North Korea's defiance of the UN Security Council resolution from 2006 that banned the country from launching ballistic missiles. Pyongyang may be insisting that its intent was to launch a satellite, but its neighbours have a fairly good feel for its agenda, to test missile technology for its larger purpose of eventually perfecting nuclear warheads.

In its missile development with the Taepodong-2 missile, it has a ready market in Syria, Pakistan and Iran to whom it has already sold earlier rocket prototypes. It's a case of the self-entitled determined leading the black market in forbidden technologies finding favour with those countries of the world whose use of the capabilities would not remain discreet and controlled, but present as a horror prospect in forthcoming unsettled times.

Amid the raucous shouts of suspicion and fear for the future, Beijing and Moscow call for calm and restraint in reaction. And since no general agreement ensued at the security council over whether North Korea was in actual breach of the resolution, it's questionable now whether amended sanctions can be agreed upon. Especially since China insists the world should avoid additional tension.

The tantrums of equal entitlement the world has been witness to emanating from countries like Iran and North Korea, with their hangers-on in Syria and Pakistan, bring to the fore the reality of the genie having escaped the bottle and refusing to be tamped back in. They are championed by Russia and China; they represent a high level of resentment against the West, a deplorable political agenda, a social system heavily weighted in totalitarian abuse.

In a message of measured understatement, papering over the very real concerns in Japan, the official statement was that "It is extremely regrettable that North Korea went ahead with the launch ... and we protest strongly", according to Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary. Pyongyong will be distressed to hear that, and will most surely proffer sincere apologies for upsetting its neighbour.

The bluster from South Korea, Japan and the United States prior to the rocket launch, that they planned to intercept the rocket, and most certainly would do so if it was launched toward Japan, came to nothing despite the missile-intercepting ships and anti-missile batteries placed along the projected flight path. They were left, by events, in a state of mild embarrassment and wild concern.

While North Korea, too impoverished to rescue its population from privation and starvation, is jubilant that matters proceeded as planned. The constant concessions North Korea has been able to wrest from a previous "sunshine policy" government in South Korea in brotherly patience and relief for its citizens, from the United States in offers of material support, bought it the time it needed - interspersed with bouts of recidivism.

Kim Jong-Il, strutting popinjay though he is, appears deviously clever enough to be able to manipulate those leaders driven to distraction by the determined drive toward nuclear weaponry - in the hands of a presumed lunatic. One complacently assuring his critics on the one hand that the launch had a peaceful purpose; the penniless country ready to tackle space with its satellites.

The population of North Korea may slip further into deprivation, but the might of its military and its programmed target will not be interfered with. The threat of war is a credible/incredible cudgel with which to keep his critics sweating on the sidelines, begging, pleading, bargaining, threatening.