FRIDAY,  MAY 29,  2009

OUR CASH, THEIR BOMBS - AT 9:16 P.M. ET:  Superb investigative reporter Joel Mowbray, in the Washington Times, exposes something that should have been stopped long ago - the misappropriation of American foreign-aid money shipped to the Mideast.  Of course, we must not be judgmental about the financial choices made by other cultures, mustn't we?  Yes we must.  Consider:

According to a critical report issued last week by the Government Accountability Office, the auditing arm of Congress, the State Department has fallen short overseeing aid to Palestinians through both the U.S. Agency for International Development and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which administers Palestinian refugee camps.

This means in practical terms that many of the Palestinians who are consuming a steady diet of Islamist indoctrination and glorification of violence receive this brainwashing courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. It doesn't require high-level deductions to predict how badly this wounds - if not kills - any hope for Palestinian society to embrace peaceful coexistence with a Jewish state of Israel.

Mowbray notes that Congress has attempted to improve things:

Lawmakers have dictated repeatedly and explicitly that no U.S. taxpayer funds can go to any organization that has even "advocated" terrorism - meaning no money should go to groups whose leaders have declared on Al-Jazeera or elsewhere that suicide bombers are "martyrs." 

And yet...

The State Department's bar that contractors and aid recipients must clear is much lower. Even under the most thorough vetting the department conducts, essentially only people who have actively participated in terrorism would be declared ineligible.  It appears the department hasn't even bothered to think of a way to determine which people trying to receive U.S. taxpayer dollars have advocated terrorism.

In other words, unless you're caught with the suicide belt around your waist, or the bomb in the trunk of your pink Mercedes, you're good to go.

President Kennedy famously declared the State Department a "bowl of Jell-O."  Apparently it's descended even further, into a pile of goo.  There were many reports of State officials trying to torpedo George W. Bush's foreign policy.  There is a mentality at Foggy Bottom that should be changed, but I suspect it is now so institutionalized that it never will be.

There are many terrific members of the Foreign Service who do an outstanding job representing this country, often at the risk of their lives.  But the policymaking levels have frustrated many presidents and members of Congress.  They continue to get away with it.

May 29, 2009   Permalink

BLAME THE BRITS! - AT 8:37 P.M. ET:  There was a song not too many years ago, "Blame Canada," seeking, in a satirical way of course, to blame Canada for all the problems of the world.

But this isn't satirical.  Presidential Press Secretary Bob Gibbs has launched a major assault on the British press, some of whose members claimed that photos suppressed by the White House included images of rape and torture by American soldiers.  The Politico reports on just what he said:

“I want to speak generally about some reports I’ve witnessed over the past few years in the British media. And in some ways, I’m surprised it filtered down,” Gibbs began. “Let’s just say if I wanted to look up — if I wanted to read a writeup today of how Manchester United fared last night in the Champion’s League cup, I might open up a British newspaper. If I was looking for something that bordered on truthful news, I’m not entirely sure it’d be in the first pack of clips I’d pick up.”

“You're not going to find very many of these newspapers and truth within 25 words of each other,” Gibbs continued.

COMMENT:  Quite remarkable, I think.  While a bit over the top, Gibbs is essentially correct.  There are serious credibility issues in some British papers.  However, there are far worse credibility issues in the press of other countries, including and especially some Muslim countries, where myths are reported as news.  But official Washington has been endlessly silent about that.

Going after only the British press is a bit awkward, considering the snubs Mr. Obama has directed at the Brits this year - returning the bust of Churchill that resided in the Oval Office, treating the prime minister rather shabbily when he visited, going along with the idea of not inviting Queen Elizabeth II to next week's D-Day remembrance, and not contradicting a White House aide who said that there was nothing special about our relationship with Britain. 

Now comes the attack on the British press.  That press is less than passionate about Obama, and this won't help.  Look for some tough reporting from London about the president.  I wouldn't be shocked if it's a Brit who uncovers a White House scandal.

May 29, 2009   Permalink

HERE COMES THE JUDGE - AT 9:08 A.M. ET:  To its credit, The New York Times runs a pair of fair-minded pieces (surprise) on Judge Sonia Sotomayor today, raising some legitimate doubts about her fitness to serve on the Supreme Court.  The first is on her temperament:

Judge Sotomayor’s colleagues on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit say her tough and direct questioning reflects engagement and, sometimes, an effort to persuade her colleagues...

...Other lawyers, though, are not so enamored. In the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary, which conducts anonymous interviews with lawyers to assess judges, she has gone from generally rave reviews to more tepid endorsements. Among the comments from lawyers was that she is a “terror on the bench” who “behaves in an out-of-control manner” and attacks lawyers “for making an argument she doesn’t like.”

Wait 'til she tries that with Scalia in the room.

And then there's her politics:

In the 1980s, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund sued the New York City Police Department, claiming that its promotion exams discriminated against Latinos and African-Americans...

...All those efforts were backed by the defense fund’s board of directors, an active and passionate group that included a young lawyer named Sonia Sotomayor, who this week was chosen by President Obama to join the country’s highest court.

Ms. Sotomayor’s involvement with the defense fund has so far received scant attention. But her critics, including some Republican senators who will vote on her nomination, have questioned whether she has let her ethnicity, life experiences and public advocacy creep into her decisions as a judge.

COMMENT:  These are entirely appropriate issues for Senate review.  Judge Sotomayor will be confirmed, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with the opposition placing her entire record before the public, and asking her the same probing questions asked of President Bush's nominees.

May 29, 2009   Permalink

OH - AT 8:42 A.M. ET:  The AP reports a few more wonderfully warm responses to the president's "outreach" policy:

HAVANA (AP) -- Fidel Castro says President Barack Obama "misinterpreted" his brother Raul's remarks regarding the United States and bristled at the suggestion that Cuba should free political prisoners or cut taxes on remittances from abroad as a goodwill gesture to the U.S.

Well, maybe it's just the translator's fault.  And this:

YEONPYEONG, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea defiantly test-fired another short-range missile Friday and warned it would act in ''self-defense'' if provoked by the U.N. Security Council, which is considering tough sanctions against the communist regime for conducting a nuclear test.

Oh, they're just upset.  We get upset, don't we?  It's a cultural misunderstanding.

Anyone watching in Washington?

May 29, 2009   Permalink

RESULTS OF OBAMA'S FOREIGN POLICY - THE ENVELOPE PLEASE - AT 8:07 A.M. ET:  Jon Ward, in the Washington Times, gives us a pretty stark picture of the result of President Obama's foreign policy thus far.  This is not pleasant:

President Obama's Inauguration Day promise to open his hand to hostile world leaders if they would "unclench their fist" has been met with belligerence from North Korea's Kim Jong-il and defiance from Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, testing the efficacy of the president's emphasis on diplomacy.

The president also has had to endure slights from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Castro brothers, but outreach to those Latin American countries does appear to be yielding some early results.

And the great John Bolton, who has yet to be wrong on any major issue, explains things to the new administration:

John R. Bolton, who served as President George W. Bush's ambassador to the United Nations, said Mr. Obama's inaugural remarks were the words of "a naive and inexperienced leader" and that Mr. Obama "did it again" after North Korea's test of a nuclear bomb Monday.

"He said North Korea will never gain international acceptance by pursuing nuclear weapons. That is the paradigm of an American politician who thinks that acceptance is the highest earthly objective," Mr. Bolton said. "The North Koreans couldn't care less about acceptance. They care about having nuclear weapons."

COMMENT:  Why, who is this man Bolton?  Doesn't he understand the importance of acceptance, of being invited to the right parties, of proper mingling?  Why, the man is an...an adult.  Who needs him?

Of course, not everyone agrees with Bolton.  The story quotes the usual suspects, who cheer on our new "engagement" policy.  But, you know, occasionally we impatient, belligerent, simplistic Yanks would like to see some real results.  Nothing much so far. 

May 29, 2009   Permalink

OUR NEW/OLD MIDEAST FANTASIES - AT 7:46 A.M. ET:  While Bob Gates (see just below) hustles to reassure Asia that we're not wimping out on North Korea, policy changes are underway in the Mideast to get tough with an ally.  Jackson Diehl, in the Washington Post, nails it:

From its first days the Bush administration made it clear that the onus for change in the Middle East was on the Palestinians: Until they put an end to terrorism, established a democratic government and accepted the basic parameters for a settlement, the United States was not going to expect major concessions from Israel.

Obama, in contrast, has repeatedly and publicly stressed the need for a West Bank settlement freeze, with no exceptions. In so doing he has shifted the focus to Israel. He has revived a long-dormant Palestinian fantasy: that the United States will simply force Israel to make critical concessions, whether or not its democratic government agrees, while Arabs passively watch and applaud.

Diehl notes that there's a, well, a history here.  Maybe the president just doesn't know:

Setting aside Hamas and its insistence that Israel must be liquidated, Abbas -- usually described as the most moderate of Palestinian leaders -- last year helped doom Netanyahu's predecessor, Ehud Olmert, by rejecting a generous outline for Palestinian statehood.

Yeah.  And it wasn't the first time the Palestinians turned down a generous proposal.  Arafat did it during the Clinton administration.

Now, according to Diehl, the Palestinians feel they can just sit back, do nothing, and wait for the Israeli government to collapse.  Diehl concludes:

In the Obama administration, so far, it's easy being Palestinian.

COMMENT:  So far, Obama's allies in Congress have given him a pass on the Mideast, in part because he's concentrating on the settlements, which are unpopular here.  That pass may have limits, though.

Next week Mr. Obama will be making his much-anticipated speech to the Muslim world, from Egypt.  We will watch every word.  Will he grovel?  Will he accept "moral equivalence" between 9-11 and our action in Iraq?  Will he play to the American and European left?  Will he throw Israel, if not under the bus, then a little closer to it?  Will he abandon our support for democracy in the Muslim world, and the fair treatment of women?

Those are the questions.  We will ask them together.

May 29, 2009   Permalink

GATES SENT TO "REASSURE" ALLIES...AGAIN - AT 7:12 A.M. ET:  Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates seems to have a new portfolio - secretary of reassurance.  Several months after he was sent to the Arab world to "reassure" nations there of our toughness toward Iran, he jets off to the Far East to "reassure" other allies regarding North Korea.  Of course, at the same time he "reassures" Americans that nothing is all that critical.  New York Times:

ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Friday that the United States had detected no unusual military movement in North Korea and had no plans to reinforce some 28,000 American forces in South Korea after North Korea threatened its neighbor to the South with a military attack.

“I’m not aware of any military moves in the North that are out of the ordinary at least,” Mr. Gates told reporters on his plane en route to Singapore for an annual security conference that will be dominated by North Korea’s test this week of a nuclear device.

Well, that's good to know.  Now we can ignore those neocons who are obsessing over that North Korean nuclear blast.

At the same time:

Mr. Gates said he will use the previously scheduled conference to reassure America’s strongest allies in northeast Asia, Japan and South Korea of President Obama’s commitment to their defense in the face of the latest of a half-century of threats from North Korea.

COMMENT:  You know, when you have to keep "reassuring" allies, maybe there's something wrong with the policy. 

Also, note that the reporter slipped in the phrase "half-century of threats from North Korea," as if these latest were just part of a long, ho-hum, line of meaningless threats.  No, they're different.  This time they carry a nuclear and missile-equipped punch.  As the story goes on to say, North Korea's penchant for transferring this technology to other lovelies around the world is the critical issue.

May 29, 2009   Permalink

THURSDAY,  MAY 28,  2009

LITERARY NOTES - AT 11:25 P.M. ET:   Well-informed reader Will Stroock has an article in the August 2009 issue of Military Heritage, about the Soviet experience in Afghanistan.  Read the first part here.  The remainder is in the print edition, available at large bookstores like Borders or Barnes & Noble.  Very good stuff.

Also, although there's been no official announcement, it appears that the neoconservative New York Sun, which had to fold last year under economic pressure, is back with a limited online edition.  Find it here.  Only some of the sections are back, but the start is good, and worthwhile.

May 28, 2009   Permalink 

MORE SIGN OF A BACKLASH AGAINST THE NEW ORDER? - AT 9:59 P.M. ET:  A few days ago we reported an article by John Judis in the liberal New Republic that pointed out that tough economic times often bring a return to traditional values.  We noted that recent polls on abortion and gun control signalled a possible shift to the right.  Now comes something else.  We must caution that this is one incident.  A group for men's rights is being formed at the generally liberal University of Chicago (my alma mater).  It coincides with other expressions of concern over the deteriorating condition of men in some sectors of American society.  The Chicago Tribune:

A group of University of Chicago students think it's time the campus focused more on its men.

A third-year student from Lake Bluff has formed Men in Power, a student organization that promises to help men get ahead professionally. But the group's emergence has been controversial, with some critics charging that its premise is misogynistic.

Others say it's about time men are championed, noting that recent job losses hit men harder and that women earn far more bachelor's and master's degrees than do men.

"It's an enormous disparity now," said Warren Farrell, author of "The Myth of Male Power" and former board member of the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women. He noted, among other things, an imbalance in government and private initiatives that advance the interests of women and girls.

I'm all for equality and women's rights - I have two daughters - but there's no question that men have had some serious setbacks in recent years, and that's unhealthy for the society.  There may still be some radical feminists who don't care what happens to boys and men, but they are few in number.  Half the mothers in America, after all, are mothers of boys, and they care what happens to their sons.

Another report from American Thinker:

Over the Memorial Day weekend, many college administrators attended a conference about the absence of men on today's college campuses and expressed concern about the negative experiences and unprecedented challenges facing college men today.

The "2nd Conference on College Men" at the University of Pennsylvania featured sessions examining the implications of negative comments about men that are prevalent on college campuses and the sexist campus activism of participants in the nation's 500 college gender studies departments. The conference program, attended by about 100 professors and student affairs personnel, exposed some unpleasant facts: men are "overrepresented" in drug and alcohol abuse, violations of campus regulations, and acts of violence and sexual assault, and they are "underrepresented" in academic programs and campus leadership activities.

Great article.  Stories started years ago about how boys are demeaned in the current educational culture.  In some schools, any books that appeal to boys are taken off library shelves.  Radical feminism has become a staple at teachers' colleges.  Now the backlash.

May 28, 2009   Permalink

MEANWHILE, BACK IN AMERICAN POLITICS - AT 9:09 P.M. ET:  As Obama worries about Israeli settlements, maybe he should pay attention to some shifting of real estate here in the U.S.  Namely, Chrysler dealerships.  The Washington Examiner reports on a growing scandal:

Evidence appears to be mounting that the Obama administration has systematically targeted for closing Chrysler dealers who contributed to Republicans. What started earlier this week as mainly a rumbling on the Right side of the Blogosphere has gathered some steam today with revelations that among the dealers being shut down are a GOP congressman and closing of competitors to a dealership chain partly owned by former Clinton White House chief of staff Mack McLarty.

The basic issue raised here is this: How do we account for the fact millions of dollars were contributed to GOP candidates by Chrysler dealers who are being closed by the government, but only one has been found so far that is being closed that contributed to the Obama campaign in 2008?

COMMENT:  Is someone suggesting that our Chicago-based White House would be a party to...political hackery?  Why, I'm shocked.  I'm just shocked that anyone would suggest that our president, who, after all, grew up in scandal-free Indonesia, would tolerate anything like this. 

Well, a number of people are suggesting just that.  The other side is saying that car dealers are overwhelmingly Republican, and that accounts for the figures.  But the Examiner asks:  If they were overwhelmingly Democratic, would the administration put pressure on Chrysler to close them down...or keep them?  Hmm.

And there's this tidbit: 

Maybe it's significant, maybe not, but a colleague here in the Examiner newsroom just reminded me that White House car czar Steven Rattner is married to Maureen White, the former national finance chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Not relevant.  Nothing to see, nothing to see.

May 28, 2009    Permalink

PRESSURE ON ISRAEL - AT 8:31 P.M. ET:  President Obama met with President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority at the White House today, but all the pressure was on Israel:

WASHINGTON — President Obama called on Israelis and Palestinians on Thursday to move swiftly toward peace talks, as his administration embarked on its first public dispute with Israel.

Speaking to reporters at the White House after talks with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, Mr. Obama said that the absence of peace between Israelis and Palestinians was clogging up other critical issues in the Middle East. “Time is of the essence,” Mr. Obama said. “We can’t continue with the drift and the increased fear on both sides, the sense of hopelessness that we’ve seen for too many years now. We need to get this thing back on track.”

Mr. Obama reiterated his call for a halt to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and said he expected a response soon from President Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.

And this gem of strategy:

Officials close to the Palestinian Authority said that Mr. Abbas’s meetings in Washington with administration officials—including Mrs. Clinton and the National Security Adviser, General James L. Jones—have been more amicable. That could reflect the view in Washington that Mr. Abbas does not have the political weight at the moment to push through anything on the Palestinian side.

Part of the reason administration officials are pushing the Israelis on settlements is that they think that stance will bolster Mr. Abbas with an increasingly fractured Palestinian population.

COMMENT:  Yeah, right.  If Israel gives on settlements, Hamas and Hezbollah will just melt into the woodwork and start singing the Israeli national anthem.

I'm no big fan of Israeli settlements, but the notion that they are somehow blocking peace is delusional.  Israeli abandoned all its settlements in Sinai when Egypt made peace.  It abandoned all its settlements in Gaza when it pulled out.  Neither made much difference with the Arab militants sworn to destroy Israel.

This is Jimmah Carter land.  The pressure on Israel comes the day that we learn that Queen Elizabeth II has been excluded from D-Day ceremonies with Mr. Obama in France, and a week before we start requiring passports from Canadians wanting to enter the U.S.

Any pressure on enemies?  Well, we must understand them.  They may not have the "political weight" to do things.  We must be tolerant.  We must be...

Remember that North Korean nuclear test?  It's already off the front pages.

May 28, 2009   Permalink

AND IT ISN'T JUST BRITAIN - AT 8:46 A.M. ET:  Silvio Canto Jr. alerts us to a marvelous column in the Canadian press, chiding President Obama for his attitude toward Canada.  Do you think the president has a problem with these Western-type countries, like Britain, Canada...and the U.S.?

Dear President Obama, Like most Canadians I rooted for you madly and cried when you were elected President-of-The-World. So far, I think you've been a great leader, reaching out to the whole planet.

But you've forgotten one nation - Canada.

On June 1, you will officially defend the "world's longest undefended border," a border I've crossed hundreds of times. From now on, we Canadians need passports to enter the U.S., a major hassle for truckdrivers, boaters and shmoes like me who can no longer cross to buy cheap Polo shirts without remembering to pack passports for the whole family.

Yeah.  It's get-tough-with-Canada week.  Who said this president hasn't got a spine?

This will also end a long U.S.-Canada tradition - the army of under- 21 U.S. college students who pour into Canada for their first legal drinking binge. Many won't bother to get the passports they'll need to get back into the States - so we may have to keep them.

Why the change? Our nations always boasted "the world's friendliest border," but now you Americans see us as Afghanistanada, a terrorist haven with porous borders guarded by Frosty the Snowman. Your politicians rant about our supposedly lax security. Last week, even Hillary Clinton talked about "hardening" the U.S.-Canada "water borders" with more patrols, as if the Great Lakes were filled with Somali pirates.

COMMENT:  We wait to see what insults are in store for Australia.  And can the New Zealanders be far behind?  We know the Kiwis are a threat to our national survival.  There are midnight meetings at the White House. 

May 28, 2009   Permalink

OH DEAR, OH DEAR, OH DEAR - NOT AGAIN - AT 8:20 A.M. ET:  What is this thing that Obama seems to have about Britain?  First, he sends back a bust of Winston Churchill that had been in the Oval Office.  Then he insults the prime minister by giving him a set of DVDs that don't play in British machines.  Then an aide to the president leaks the notion that there's no longer a special relationship between Britain and America.  And now, the ultimate, the snub to the Queen...even though she had the Obamas over when they traipsed to London recently.  The New York Times reports the latest flap:

LONDON — Queen Elizabeth is not amused.

Indeed, she is decidedly displeased, angry even, that she was not invited to join President Obama and France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, next week at commemorations of the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, according to reports published in Britain’s mass-circulation tabloid newspapers on Wednesday. Pointedly, Buckingham Palace did not deny the reports.

The queen, who is 83, is the only living head of state who served in uniform during World War II. As Elizabeth Windsor, service number 230873, she volunteered as a subaltern in the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service, training as a driver and a mechanic. Eventually, she drove military trucks in support roles in England.

COMMENT:  How do you make a mistake like this?  Don't they have protocol officers in Washington?  Now you just know that this will be the buzz when the president goes to Normandy. 

Do you invite the Queen at the last minute?  Do you say the invitation got lost in the mail?  Was eaten by the new White House dog?  Was eaten by the president?  By Judge Sotomayor?

Britain had colonized Kenya, the president's father's native land, and some theorize that Mr. Obama resents the Brits.  Even so, you have to invite the Queen to these things.  I know it's another mouth to feed, but still...

Oh, I looked up "subaltern," used in the last paragraph of the Times quote above.  It means an officer in the British army below the rank of captain, particularly a second lieutenant.  Now we've all learned something today.

May 28, 2009   Permalink

STILL DOWNPLAYING THE THREAT - AT 7:55 A.M. ET:  We don't hear much from Gen. James Jones, the president' national security adviser.  He doesn't have anything near the visibility that Henry Kissinger or Condi Rice had in the same role.  He has now surfaced, proved that he is still breathing, and has pronounced on the North Korea situation:

President Obama’s national security adviser on Wednesday said that North Korea’s recent nuclear detonation and missile tests are not “an imminent threat” to the safety and security of the United States.

Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, in his first speech on the administration’s approach to national security, said that the “imminent threat” posed by North Korea is that of the proliferation of nuclear technologies to other countries and terrorist organizations.

North Korea still has “a long way” to “weaponize” and work on the delivery of its nuclear missiles before they pose a threat to U.S. security, Jones said in a discussion hosted by the Atlantic Council.

COMMENT:  In the immortal words of George Gobel, let's wait one gosh-darned minute.  Review that argument again:  The Korean tests are not "an imminent threat" to the U.S.  The imminent threat is proliferation of nuclear technology to nations and terror groups.

Say what?  Isn't proliferation an imminent threat to the U.S.?  I kinda thought it was.

One purpose of White House officials is to play down threats to take pressure off the president.  I'm guessing that's at work here.  The trouble is, there are too many people in the president's extended family of mainstream reporters and editors who will take what Jones is saying at face value, and melt North Korea off the front page.

May 28, 2009   Permalink

DOES THIS MEAN HE'S NOT DIVINE? - AT 7:39 A.M. ET:  The president has been comparing himself to others again, but the comparison this time is a step down from the Divinity: 

After being introduced at the DNC fundraiser at the Beverley Hills Hilton by famed producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, President Obama compared himself to FDR.

"I would put these first four months up against any prior administration since FDR," Obama said. "We didn't ask for the challenges that we face, but we don't shrink from them either."

Katzenberg had a theatrical way of describing the president in his introduction.

"If you look in the dictionary under 'grace under fire,' it will say Barack Obama," he said.

COMMENT:  Well, actually it's not in the dictionary, but how would a Hollywood producer know?  The phrase was used frequently to describe Jack Kennedy, but then it was "grace under pressure." 

Once again the president announces that he didn't ask for the challenges he faces.  What president ever did?  Did Lincoln say, "I'd really like a civil war, please, Lord"?  It's simply another variation of "blame Bush."  And I think the American people will start to tire of it.

He also says that he doesn't shrink from those challenges.  We'll see about that.  Key words are Korea, Iran, nuclear.

May 28, 2009   Permalink

KOREA UPDATE - AT 7:21 A.M. ET:  From the Washington Post:

TOKYO, May 28 -- The joint command for South Korean and U.S. forces on the Korean peninsula raised its alert level Thursday in response to an extraordinary week of truculence from North Korea.

At the United Nations, diplomats are pushing for sanctions with teeth against the government of Kim Jong Il. Proposals include freezing assets, banning travel for elites and cutting access to international banks.

Japan and the United States want a new resolution that makes cargo inspections of North Korean vessels "compulsory'' for U.N. members, according to a report by Japan's Kyodo news agency, which cited diplomats in New York. It also said that a trade embargo on all arms, not just large weapons such as battle tanks, has been proposed.

COMMENT:  It's a symbolic act, last done in 2006 after North Korea's last nuclear test.  The key here is the extent to which China and Russia, ostensible allies of North Korea, will go along with stronger sanctions, sanctions tough enough to change the country's behavior.  If that behavior doesn't change, we have to ask ourselves what action, short of military action, will accomplish anything.  If the answer is "no action," Mr. Obama will have a very stark choice.

And Iran is watching.

May 28, 2009   Permalink