The world should see that North Korea is no laughing matter

I found myself snorting with derision last night while watching a news bulletin about the Korean situation. The sight of a Gummy Bear like Kim Jong Un vowing to obliterate the United States was too much after a long day. But then I checked myself: what if, this time, the madmen are serious?

It is, of course, a leap to say that a regime of such longevity is mad. There is cunning in Kim Jong Un’s apparent lunacy, which has been heightened yet again by news that he has closed the border to South Korean workers in a jointly-run industrial zone. Such actions are not created ex nihilo.

Almost exactly twelve months ago, Mitt Romney, then the Republican presidential hopeful, launched an assault on the failure of the Obama administration’s North Korean policy when Pyongyang tested a long-range rocket. Romney, keen to demonstrate Hawkish sensibilities, said:

‘Instead of approaching Pyongyang from a position of strength, President Obama sought to appease the regime with a food-aid deal that proved to be as naive as it was short-lived.’