If only President Obama were as tough on America’s enemies as he’s been on his own domestic rivals. Recall his statement, during the 2008 presidential campaign, on how to deal with Republicans: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” Unfortunately, no such creed seems to apply in Obama’s dealings with North Korea (or, for that matter, with Iran, or Russia, or Cuba…). Instead, while Pyongyang prepares a nuclear test, Obama brings neither a gun nor a knife to the showdown. Rather, in apparent hope of yet another “historic” bargain to cap the rotten nuclear deal with Iran and the feckless embrace of Cuba’s Castro regime, he extends his hand to Pyongyang.
So we learn from a Feb. 21 Wall Street Journal scoop, headlined: “U.S. Agreed to North Korea Peace Talks Before Latest Nuclear Test.” The Journal article, by Alastair Gale and Carol E. Lee, broke the news that “days before North Korea’s latest nuclear-bomb test, the Obama administration secretly agreed to talks to try to formally end the Korean War, dropping a longstanding condition that Pyongyang first take steps to curtail its nuclear arsenal.”
In other words, while North Korea was readying its fourth nuclear test, the Obama administration was quietly offering concessions to North Korea’s tyrant Kim Jong Un. Make no mistake, for America to talk with North Korea at all is, in itself, a concession — dignifying the world’s most horrific rogue regime, while setting the stage for yet another round of North Korean cheating and nuclear extortion. For the American superpower, erstwhile leader of the Free World, to furtively offer sweeteners — and this one was a whopper — in hope of opening official talks with Kim is even worse. Concessions that the State Department may regard as carrots are viewed by North Korea as capitulation.