The Axis of Obama

 

Kim Jong-Un: “Ready to strike the West at any time”. Picture courtesy of Express.co.uk – Getty Images

Kim Jong-Un claims his country now has full nuclear capabilities. How much of this saber rattling is due to the pusillanimous Iran Deal?

Have the NoKo’s seen the craven Obama administration’s handling of Iran and now believe they can get as good a deal for North Korea?

The Atlantic

North Korea says it will use its “steadily improved” nuclear program against the United States at “any time,” calling the program a response to a “reckless hostile policy” from the U.S.

North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said the reactor at the Yongbyon nuclear facility had been restarted two years ago—along with uranium enrichment. The facility was shut down in 2007 under a deal reached with the U.S. and five other world powers.

L.A. Times

Pyongyang had said previously that work had resumed at Yongbyon, but the status of the plant’s operation had been questioned by foreign analysts off and on for the past year.

Satellite imagery published last week by the North Korea affairs website 38 North suggested evidence of new activity at Yongbyon’s plutonium production complex. Yongbyon is about 55 miles north of Pyongyang, the capital.

What will the world look like when Obama is done with it?

quote-Winston-Churchill-success-is-the-ability-to-go-from-52

Published in Foreign Policy
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  1. jetstream Inactive
    jetstream
    @jetstream

    Come on Dave, we haven’t even had time for the Prozac to kick to help us live with Obama’s invitation for Iran to nuke us and and you want to abuse us some more with this.

    The Chix Pit has been making plans to move to Perth Australlia, past time to get out of Dodge.

    • #1
  2. blank generation member Inactive
    blank generation member
    @blankgenerationmember

    Why worry?  I’m sure Kim Jong-Un’s statements are for domestic political consumption.

    • #2
  3. David Sussman Member
    David Sussman
    @DaveSussman

    blank generation member:Why worry? I’m sure Kim Jong-Un’s statements are for domestic political consumption.

    Not so sure about that.

    I’m not worried about NoKo… Im worried that we will start to hear rumblings of another Obama false dilemma fallacy justifying a weak deal instead of going to war. Would anyone be surprised?

    • #3
  4. blank generation member Inactive
    blank generation member
    @blankgenerationmember

    David Sussman:

    blank generation member:Why worry? I’m sure Kim Jong-Un’s statements are for domestic political consumption.

    Not so sure about that.

    I’m not worried about NoKo… Im worried that we will start to hear rumblings of another Obama false dilemma fallacy justifying a weak deal instead of going to war. Would anyone be surprised?

    I don’t belive the domestic political consumption line myself, but expect to hear that from the usual sources.  The Norks do like to make deals this way though.

    • #4
  5. rico Inactive
    rico
    @rico

    David Sussman: Have the NoKo’s seen the craven Obama administration’s handling of Iran and now believe they can get as good a deal for North Korea?

    Kim Jong-Un will will have to significantly amp up his anti-American rhetoric to have any hope of gaining that kind of respect from BH-O.

    • #5
  6. jetstream Inactive
    jetstream
    @jetstream

    David Sussman:

    blank generation member:Why worry? I’m sure Kim Jong-Un’s statements are for domestic political consumption.

    Not so sure about that.

    I’m not worried about NoKo… Im worried that we will start to hear rumblings of another Obama false dilemma fallacy justifying a weak deal instead of going to war. Would anyone be surprised?

    Obama will surrender, it’s a girlie-girl thing.

    Saw an article detailing the a number of ways Putin is rubbing Obama’s nose in geopolitical stuff. Thought about how George Patton had Challenged Rommel to a tank duel, winner takes all. Juxtaposed with Obama with his girlie jeans and bicycle headed out to duel Putin.

    Somehow, we have to survive 14 more months.

    • #6
  7. David Sussman Member
    David Sussman
    @DaveSussman

    jetstream:

    David Sussman:

    blank generation member:Why worry? I’m sure Kim Jong-Un’s statements are for domestic political consumption.

    Not so sure about that.

    I’m not worried about NoKo… Im worried that we will start to hear rumblings of another Obama false dilemma fallacy justifying a weak deal instead of going to war. Would anyone be surprised?

    Obama will surrender, it’s a girlie-girl thing.

    Saw an article detailing the a number of ways Putin is rubbing Obama’s nose in geopolitical stuff. Thought about how George Patton had Challenged Rommel to a tank dual, winner takes all. Juxtaposed with Obama with his girlie jeans and bicycle headed out to dual Putin.

    Somehow, we have to survive 14 more months.

    Can you share that article? His cowardly and feckless approach to world affairs is placing the world in a perilous position. I watch SkyNews nightly and the problems we are seeing in Europe are just beginning.

    • #7
  8. Eeyore Member
    Eeyore
    @Eeyore

    David Sussman: Can you share that article? His cowardly and feckless approach to world affairs is placing the world in a perilous position.

    Don’t know about that article, but here is the report of a small Chinese invasion force (three surface warfare ships, one amphibious assault ship and one supply vessel) practicing maneuvers 12 miles off the Alaska coast while Dear Leader was there.

    “Navy Commander Bill Urban, a Pentagon spokesman, said Wednesday the sighting marked the first time ships from the People’s Liberation Army Navy were seen in the Bering Sea.”

    The White House said the Defense Department “positively identified a number of Chinese naval vessels in that region, but based on their analysis, they have not detected any sort of threat or threatening activities.”

    Nutin’ to see here.

    Hmm, I wonder if Barack Obama was  in “Buckaroo Banzai” playing John Smallberries?

    • #8
  9. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    David Sussman:
    Have the NoKo’s seen the craven Obama administration’s handling of Iran and now believe they can get as good a deal for North Korea?

    Yes. Just as Iran and  Castro saw Carter’s weakness. Does anyone believe we would have had an Iran hostage crisis or a Mariel boat lift if there had been a Republican in the White House? Here we go again. Only this time it’s a whole lot more serious.

    • #9
  10. BrentB67 Inactive
    BrentB67
    @BrentB67

    N. Korea is a hard read. Some questions I’ve not seen clearly resolved:

    1. The two tests I’m aware of appeared to be low yield/efficiency. That typically doesn’t bode well for weaponization. Do we have better information?

    2. Making a deliverable weapon package is extremely difficult. It is intuitive the NORK’s could lob something into the South or over China’s border (that would make a party), but getting much past that may be easier said than done.

    David, do you have better/more current information?

    • #10
  11. Fake John Galt Coolidge
    Fake John Galt
    @FakeJohnJaneGalt

    If we had a leader with some guts we would run couple nuclear tests in NK to show them what a real bomb looks like then threaten war for them setting the weapons off. Pyongyang Would make a good testing place.

    Unfortunately we do not have a real leader so we will most likely give NK a couple hundred billion and ease sanctions to scare them into submission. That is what happens when you elect President granny panties twice in a row. Hate to see what is going to happen when we elect President granny panties version 2.0.

    • #11
  12. David Sussman Member
    David Sussman
    @DaveSussman

    BrentB67:N. Korea is a hard read. Some questions I’ve not seen clearly resolved:

    1. The two tests I’m aware of appeared to be low yield/efficiency. That typically doesn’t bode well for weaponization. Do we have better information?

    2. Making a deliverable weapon package is extremely difficult. It is intuitive the NORK’s could lob something into the South or over China’s border (that would make a party), but getting much past that may be easier said than done.

    David, do you have better/more current information?

    Brent, the Albright report back in Feb is the only thing I saw, for now. CNN just broke the story:

    http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/15/asia/north-korea-nuclear-program/index.html

    Kim Jong Un’s regime may already have 10 to 15 nuclear weapons, according to David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector who now heads the nonprofit Institute for Science and International Security.

    In a report in February, Albright predicted that Pyongyang could increase its stockpile to anywhere between 20 and roughly 100 nuclear weapons by 2020.

    • #12
  13. David Sussman Member
    David Sussman
    @DaveSussman

    Fake John Galt: Unfortunately we do not have a real leader so we will most likely give NK a couple hundred billion and ease sanctions to scare them into submission.

    That’s my thought. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

    • #13
  14. Michael Sanregret Inactive
    Michael Sanregret
    @TheQuestion

    There’s an odd symmetry here.  Jimmy Carter’s weakness allowed the Ayatollah to take power in Iran and threaten the free world.  Now, Obama has negotiated a nuke deal with Iran that will allow them to get nukes (among other things).

    Carter also negotiated a nuke deal with North Korea that allowed the Kims to get nukes.  Now, Obama’s weakness is allowing North Korea to threaten the free world.

    • #14
  15. Eeyore Member
    Eeyore
    @Eeyore

    Michael Sanregret: There’s an odd easily foreseeable  symmetry here.

    Fixed.

    • #15
  16. Marion Evans Inactive
    Marion Evans
    @MarionEvans

    Iran and North Korea are proxies used by Russia and China to harass us. If push comes to shove, we should “take it upstairs” to Moscow and Beijing. We are no fools.

    • #16
  17. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    If Obama would just drone-kill this little nutjob, even I might vote for him to have a third term . . .

    Okay, maybe not – but the Medal of Freedom?  Sure!

    • #17
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