North Korea takes a step too far

While the missile tests were enough to reenergize the international community in its efforts to bring North Korea to heel, this latest fallout between North and South (a South that was, in many ways, the last of those willing to give Kim Jong-il the benefit of the doubt) signifies that the North has badly overplayed its hand:

Tension between the two Koreas erupted at bilateral ministerial talks in the South Korean city of Pusan, where the Pyongyang's delegation parried complaints about the missile tests and focused instead on economic cooperation and requests for aid.

"The South side will pay a price before the nation for causing the collapse of the ministerial talks and bringing a collapse of North-South relations that is unforeseeable now," the North Koreans said in a statement before leaving for the airport, a day before the meeting was due to end.

The North Koreans demanded that the South stop joint military drills with the United States due next year, saying it was ready to protect South Korea with its 1.2-million-strong armed forces.

The North Koreans demanded that the South stop joint military drills with the United States due next year, saying it was ready to protect South Korea with its 1.2-million-strong armed forces.

That provoked an unusually biting reply from South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok that echoed the rhetoric of the years before Seoul's determined policy of rapprochement.

"Who in the South asked you to protect our safety?" Lee told Kwon on Tuesday, according to a South Korean official. "It would help our safety for the North not to fire missiles or develop a nuclear program."

The South said the North could also forget about any more aid until it returns to separate talks on its nuclear weapons.

Bro, if you've got the South's reunification minister (a man who has spent the last few years thickening his blinders regarding the duplicity of the North) telling you to get outta town, you've over-stepped your bounds.

So now the question is this: will greater international cooperation aimed at defanging North Korea prove more fruitful or more frightening? Always difficult to judge when you're dancing with a madman.

Interestingly, the title of the Reuters article was "Diplomacy in tatters as two Koreas spar." I would argue that diplomacy aimed squarely at North Korea has ALWAYS been in tatters...it's only now that the South has been forced to pull off the rose-colored glasses of reunification to see the truth. On the same note, this diplomacy among the folks dealing with the North (China, South Korea, Japan, Russia, and the US) is likely to improve. In fact, a much more common front toward the North may emerge from all of this. So...tatters? Probably an overstatement - or at least an admission of a years-long truth that has been carefully avoided by the South.

Looking for a better example of diplomacy in tatters? Here ya go.