Joke 'em if they can't take a fuck

The New York Times has the story by Steven Myers about Korea:

President Bush’s last effort to seal an agreement to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear weapons program during his presidency collapsed on Thursday, leaving the confrontation with one of the most isolated and intractable nations to the administration of President-elect Barack Obama. Four days of negotiations in Beijing ended in impasse after North Korea refused to agree to a system of verifying its promise to end all nuclear activity. Among other things, the North Koreans have objected to soil and air samples taken near nuclear facilities and sent overseas for testing. The negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear weapons — a major diplomatic achievement of President Bush’s second term — have often progressed erratically, punctuated by brinkmanship and breakdowns, only to resume again. North Korea could still return to bargaining, officials said, but it is now almost certain not to until after Mr. Bush steps down in less than six weeks, depriving him of a late diplomatic breakthrough in the sunset of his presidency.
“What’s unfortunate is that the North Koreans had an opportunity here,” the White House press secretary, Dana M. Perino, said on Thursday. “There was an open door, and all they had to do was walk through it.” Even as the administration pushed to seal an agreement, it appeared North Korea wanted to stall, perhaps to seek different terms from Mr. Obama’s administration. As a candidate and president-elect, Mr. Obama’s team has pledged aggressive steps to halt nuclear proliferation by North Korea, as well as Iran, criticizing the president’s handling of the confrontation as “ad hoc” and unnecessarily belligerent.
But while Mr. Obama has indicated he would be open to talks with Iran’s leaders, which Mr. Bush has ruled out, he has not proposed a radically different approach to North Korea than the one Mr. Bush has pursued for the last two years. In a debate against Senator John McCain in September, he criticized Mr. Bush’s initial hostility toward North Korea, saying it resulted in that country’s decision to abandon the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and test a nuclear weapon in 2006, but he also acknowledged the diplomatic effort that has since followed. “When we re-engaged — because, again, the Bush administration reversed course on this — then we have at least made some progress, although right now, because of the problems in North Korea, we are seeing it on shaky ground,” Mr. Obama said at the time.
Only two months ago, the administration officially removed North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terrorism in a bid to salvage the agreement, which has been fragile from the moment since it was first reach in February of 2007. The State Department’s spokesman, Sean McCormack, said that the administration would not reverse that decision since it had been made “based on the law and the facts. That’s an irreducible condition,” he said on Thursday. “You can’t get around that. They met the criteria.”
At the same time, however, an administration official made it clear that North Korea could not expect additional reciprocal steps or incentives without accepting a rigid and intrusive system of verification. “They’re not going to get any more from us unless they’re willing to take action,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
At the White House, Ms. Perino suggested that the United States would now reconsider some of the assistance it has provided under the carefully calibrated agreements that have been negotiated over nearly two years of talks. The aid includes fuel oil that the United States, along with China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan, had offered in exchange for North Korea’s steps toward dismantlement, but Ms. Perino emphasized that no decisions had been made yet.
North Korea’s posture in recent talks has prompted some officials to question whether its reclusive leader, Kim Jong-il, was fully in charge following a stroke in August. A French doctor who treated him, Francois-Xavier Roux, confirmed in an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro published Thursday that he had suffered a stroke but that his condition had since improved. Dr. Roux, a neurosurgeon based in Paris, told the newspaper that Mr. Kim had undergone treatment, but not an operation; he last treated him in late October, he told the newspaper. North Korea’s government has said nothing about its leader’s health except to say that foreign reports of his illness were a conspiracy to undermine the country. North Korea’s state media has recently showed pictures of the leader in public events, like a soccer match, appearing healthy. “The photos that have just been published seem recent and authentic to me,” Dr. Roux was quoted as saying. “I have the impression that he is in charge in North Korea.” He declined to detail Mr. Kim’s health, citing medical confidentiality and state secrecy. According to Figaro, two French doctors, an anesthetist and a surgeon, went to Pyongyang in 1991 and implanted a pacemaker in Mr. Kim.
The latest breakdown in talks came after American and North Korean negotiators had reached what officials described as a verbal agreement on the conditions for inspections of North Korea’s nuclear facilities, including its main plutonium reactor at Yongbyon. The United States also wanted, in particular, measures to verify North Korea’s proliferation activity and a separate so-far-undeclared effort to enrich uranium.
Administration officials said that the other parties in the talks – China, Russia, South Korea and Japan – had agreed on a written proposal, which was presented by the Chinese this week, but that North Korea continued to object to some of the verification measures. “Well, it’s the same old problem,” the American negotiator, Christopher R. Hill, said in Beijing, according to a State Department transcript. “The North Koreans don’t want to put into writing what they are willing to put into words.”

Rico says we may need to drop something loud and destructive on North Korea before they'll get with the program...