OBAMA'S DEFINITION OF GETTING TOUGH – AT 8:02 A.M. ET:  The United States is getting tough with North Korea.  The sound you hear is the North Koreans shivering in their boots.  Not really.  From Fox:

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The Obama administration moved Wednesday to push new sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear weapons program, as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates showed solidarity with South Korea during a visit to the area that separates it from the North.

Clinton announced the new measures — targeting the sale or purchase of arms and related goods used to fund the communist regime's nuclear activities, and the acquisition of luxury items to reward its elite — after she and Gates toured the heavily fortified border in a symbolic trip four months after the sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on the North.

The penalties are intended to further isolate the already hermetic North and persuade its leaders to return to talks aimed at getting it to abandon atomic weapons. The U.S. is also trying to forestall future provocative acts like the torpedoing of the Cheonan, which killed 46 South Korean sailors.

With specifics of the sanctions still being worked out, the more striking demonstration of U.S. resolve came when Clinton and Gates — in a first for America's top two cabinet members — together toured the demilitarized zone in the village of Panmunjom.

COMMENT:  Okay, but precisely what has been gained by sanctions on North Korea?  Nothing, really. Like Iran, the North Koreans shrug off sanctions and continue doing exactly what they were doing before.  The message we constantly send to the Northerners is that all they'll get when they misbehave is a slap on the wrist. 

The last major incident was the North's sinking of a South Korean warship.  The result?  A vaguely worded UN Security Council resolution that amounted to a dirty look.

The North may miscalculate and go too far next time, although "too far" seems to be a concept we're reluctant to define.

July 21,  2010