Has Kim Jong-Il Backed Down?

That would seem to be a fairly urgent question, despite the strange lack of concern among politicians and the media. China is receiving the lion's share of credit for 'persuading' North Korea to resume the Six Party negotiations it had abandoned earlier. Japan's tough unilateral sanctions and the ongoing threat of its acquisition of nuclear weapons are also mentioned, almost as an afterthought. But it may well be that Kim has discovered that getting what he wanted (a nuclear test) is not getting him what he wants. You'd think the outcome of the first attempt at global nuclear blackmail would arouse more interest in the American press, but there's an election going on, and God forbid that anything distract from that, particularly if it might reflect any credit on the Bush administration. So the North Korean nuke crisis has as a result been transformed into page—three material, as if it were an embezzlement committed by a Democratic candidate. Actual reports, as is so...(Read Full Article)

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