Endgame and Engagement

The Axis of Evil has been spinning. Analysts believe that North Korea has nuclear weapons. We are withdrawing troops from S. Korea, a signal that we are giving up on that issue entirely. Now Iran has announced a uranium enrichment program that will turn fuel uranium into weapons-grade material. By using bluster, threats of force, and isolating the United States, GWB's foreign policy has produced the greatest threats to American security in decades - nukes in the hands of our worst enemies

The Iranians have no incentive not to build the weapons -- GWB has made it plain that the accusations about WMD, even if they are totally false, are just an excuse for attacking any country on his s**tlist. So, in such an atmosphere, knowing that there is nothing that Iran (like Iraq before it) can do to win the good graces of the USA, development of nuclear weapons is the most rational move. Moreover, Iran now has what it did not have in 2002-- a window of opportunity. Why? US forces are tied down in Iraq and overextended everywhere.

How sad that in the late 1990s, we ended animosity with Vietnam and were negotiating with North Korea. We should not forget that in 2000, North and South Korea entered the Olympics under the same flag, and unification seemed imminent? Also, under Albright's leadership, we had relaxed sanctions, allowing import of pistachios and other products, from Iran. Had these policies been pursued, we would be in a very different world today. Engagement, not containment. As it is, the policy of engagement is only followed (after GWB's saber-rattling of 2001) with China. America needs new leadership whose vision of security is rooted in the realities of the 21st century, not the miltarism of the 19th.