Pyongyang plays from position of strength

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/HH29Dg01.html

WASHINGTON - North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, playing the nuclear card as never before, has trapped Washington strategists in a maze from which there may be no exit.

The question now is whether - or when - Kim will press the button on an underground test of a nuclear warhead, elevating North Korea to the ranks of the full-fledged nuclear powers and challenging Washington to respond.

Washington politicos, notably President George W Bush, may issue warnings, persuade other world leaders to bring pressure on Pyongyang and threaten to broaden economic sanctions. The United States might even increase its forces in the air and waters surrounding North Korea.

Beyond such gestures, however, Bush administration insiders have to admit there is not much they can do either in terms of stopping North Korea from conducting a test or somehow punishing Pyongyang after the fact. They cite two reasons. The first is that US forces are extremely overextended in the Middle East, and the US is in the process of downsizing, not increasing, its forces in South Korea amid a tendentious debate about who would take command in time of South Korean forces in time of war, an American or a South Korean.

[hogwyld]

1. The reason we are leaving S. Korea

Is that the people no longer want us there meddling in their affairs. The U.S. is seen as an obsticle to real peace, and are pressuring us to get the hell out of their country.