Kristoff points out the violence inherent in the system*.
The hawks are aghast at the idea of a new package deal with North Korea, and Washington seems to have been reasonable lately only because the Pentagon was too distracted by Iraq to notice what the State Department was up to. Pentagon officials yelped when they noticed, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld circulated a memo suggesting that Washington and Beijing together bring down the North Korean government._______________________________A fine dream. But what's scary is that this proposal is so divorced from reality (Beijing would never agree) that it suggests that policy is being formulated by ideologues sealed within the Pentagon.
And when sanctions on North Korea would fail, the next step would be a military strike. It's a sign of the mess we're in that even a thoughtful statesman like Senator Richard Lugar, the Indiana Republican, is talking openly about a military strike. A strike would be a historic gamble that might work, or might trigger a war that would incinerate hundreds of thousands of people in Korea and Japan.
"That would be truly insane," said Steven Bosworth, a former ambassador to Seoul. He added, "For us to unilaterally attack North Korea would in my judgment be one of the most immoral acts conceivable."
All in all, looking at the alternatives, starting negotiations should be preferable to starting wars.
* Bad Monty Python allusion
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