So, why did we invade Iraq and leave North Korea alone?

My first reaction last night to the news of North Korea's nuclear test was as follows: Well, Krazy Kim called our bluff, and there's not much we--as in the U.S--can do about it.

My next reaction was that the basis for my initial reaction was the Iraq war.

Now, I am not saying the U.S. is powerless in regards to this situation. However, I am saying we are not in a position to be the driving or dominant force in this situation.

Before I went to sleep last night (early this morning, actually), Josh Marshall published a post which on the matter which is definitely worth a read. I highly recommend reading the whole post, but I will provide some excerpts--and some additional commentary.

For the US this is a strategic failure of the first order.

The origins of the failure are ones anyone familiar with the last six years in this country will readily recognize: chest-thumping followed by failure followed by cover-up and denial. The same story as Iraq. Even the same story as Foley.

Yes, this is just another example of the Bush SOP. This is the same crap that this administration has done across the board for the last five years.

Josh next noted that rather than go to war with North Korea, Clinton took a diplomatic route and reached an agreement "in which the North Koreans would suspend their production of plutonium in exchange for fuel oil, help building light water nuclear reactors (the kind that don't help making bombs) and a vague promise of diplomatic normalization." And what did Bush then do?

President Bush came to office believing that Clinton's policy amounted to appeasement. Force and strength were the way to deal with North Korea, not a mix of force, diplomacy and aide. And with that premise, President Bush went about scuttling the 1994 agreement, using evidence that the North Koreans were pursuing uranium enrichment (another path to the bomb) as the final straw.

Remember the guiding policy of the early Bush years: Clinton did it=Bad, Bush=Not whatever Clinton did.

(emphasis added). Let's deal with the last sentence first. It did not matter whether anything that happened on Clinton's watch was good or worthwhile. Bush--and the Republican-controlled Congress--was not going to continue or build on any of it. The Republicans had spent so much time and money trying to demonize Clinton, and all they had to show for it was that he lied about an illicit blowjob. Any continuation of anything Clinton accomplished would give Clinton credit, and if that happened the Republicans would look foolish for having spent so much time and money trying to demonize Clinton.

Now let's get back to the North Korea situation. Bush decided that diplomacy was unnecessary and undesireable. He decided that force and strength was all that was called for. This excerpt from Marshall's post really hit the nail on the (war)head:

Then in the winter of 2002-3, as the US was preparing to invade Iraq, the North called Bush's bluff. And the president folded. Abjectly, utterly, even hilariously if the consequences weren't so grave and vast.

Threats are a potent force if you're willing to follow through on them. But he wasn't. The plutonium production plant, which had been shuttered since 1994, got unshuttered. And the bomb that exploded tonight was, if I understand this correctly, almost certainly the product of that plutonium uncorked almost four years ago.

So the President talked a good game, the North Koreans called his bluff and he folded. And since then, for all intents and purposes, and all the atmospherics to the contrary, he and his administration have done essentially nothing.

Part of the reason they have done nothing is because they have not been in much of a position to do anything because of Iraq. We can't use force, because all of our force is tied up in Iraq. We can't use a lot of diplomacy on own own because our credibility has been shot because of Iraq.

Oh, and we also have our diplomatic hands full with Iran these days--and yes, I think that is largely because of Iraq.

There is one positive thing developing regarding the North Korean situation, namely that there is currently unanimity in the international community condemning the nuclear test. This means that the chances of getting true international cooperation, support, and action are greatly increased--unlike what happen with the Iraq war. The possible downside is that the key players in this effort could very well turn out to be China and Russia, and in the long term, that would mean an increase in power and influence for them and a decrease for us.