North Korea
Claudia Rosett thinks that the only way to deal with North Korea is to rid the country of Kim Jong Il:
The truth is that there is no deal the U.S. or its friends can strike that Pyongyang can be trusted to honor. There is no aid we can offer North Korea’s famished people that Kim will not abuse. And there will be no decent peace until he and his regime are gone. The reason is simple. North Korea’s system needs enemies; take that away, and the entire ideological foundation of the Kim cult starts to crumble. There would be no one to blame for all the misery and militarization but the actual source: the Pyongyang regime itself.I couldn’t agree more.As for the theory that with just a little more talk, aid and understanding, Kim would be so gullible as to try to truly reform his ways, well, forget about it. Unless Kim is willing to risk his own welfare for the greater good of his fellow citizens–and there is zero precedent for that–he cannot for one instant leave himself vulnerable to anything even approaching free choice among his subjects. Whatever the mythic status of the country’s 22 million or so brainwashed citizens accord the dead Kim Il Sung, too many North Koreans these past nine years have tried to survive under the younger Kim by eating rats and dirt; too many have seen their loved ones die under Kim’s guiding hand.