Obama stands firm on Korea

There is no diplomacy with maniacs. North Korea has been the grip of one or another lunatic for 60 years; with the succession still unsettled, Pyongyang is now a salon for the insane. The escalation of posturing, violence and the nuclear programme is a brazenly mad strategy to bribe other countries in exchange for good behaviour; it’s piratical.

The world’s geopolitics may be changing, but the US President remains supreme among leaders. Yesterday, Iain Martin argued that Barack Obama had to make a strong and unequivocal statement about the situation, at least to encourage China to reprimand its errant ally. The President did so. In a long interview with the ABC network, Obama reiterated his unqualified support for South Korea and Japan, offered to work multilaterally and urged the Chinese to make clear that “there are a set of international rules they (North Korea) need to abide by.” He eschewed his trademark flights of fancy, and, for the first time in a while, looked like the leader of the free world.