From YouTube: North Korea is claiming that they successfully detonated their first hydrogen bomb. You’d think that the idea that they might have an H bomb would be somewhat alarming to those of us who are here on the West coast, but we went out on the street and it seems like if you ask people a question in a cheerful enough way, we will offer congratulations for just about anything.
Obama administration greets fourth test in a decade with usual approach of ‘strategic patience’, as Republicans once again call for harsher measures.
Barack Obama’s administration has greeted North Korea’s fourth nuclear test in a decade with the same mix of condemnation, exasperation and pleas for collective action prompted by Pyongyang’s previous nuclear detonations.
Once again, US officials said they refused to accept North Korea as a nuclear state – even though two decades of diplomacy, sanctions, and threats have failed to reverse the country’s nuclear programme.
An emergency meeting of the UN security council is expected to add economic sanctions atop longstanding ones intended to punish Kim Jong-un’s nuclear violations. A senior US State Department official said: “We would like to see additional sanctions that are very tough to continue to hold this regime to account.”
WNU Editor: Nothing will change. But expect more U.S. military personnel and equipment to be deployed, weapons to be sold, and a greater international focus on North Korea. But the Chinese are going to be miffed for a few months.
As President Obama focused intently on locking in a high-stakes nuclear deal with Iran, his administration pursued a decidedly less-clear strategy on containing North Korea, a rogue state that already possesses an atomic weapon.
This week, Pyongyang rattled the United States and its Asian allies by claiming to have successfully tested a hydrogen bomb, an act that, if confirmed, would represent a major step for that nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal. Even if the bomb turns out to be less powerful than advertised, the test alone highlighted a conundrum for a president who has made nuclear disarmament a cornerstone of his foreign-policy agenda.
The White House quickly condemned the test as a “provocative and flagrant” violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and promised to pursue punitive sanctions. But the unwillingness of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un to respond to international pressure in a fashion similar to the government in Iran has left the Obama administration with few obvious options and opened the president to criticism Wednesday that he has been too cautious in his approach.
WNU Editor: I personally doubt that any U.S. action would have made a difference .... North Korea is one unstable and unpredictable country. But having said that, there is going to be some political blow-back for Hillary Clinton ....Political fallout for Hillary Clinton after North Korea's nuke test (CNN) ... albeit this is a story that the voters will probably forget by November.
