North Korea: 2012-2016

[Ken White]

Iran is a different question. US policy debates tend to mention them in the same breath, but I'm not convinced they themselves think of themselves of having anything to do with each other.

Agree; the only similarity is in the quest for international respect and a perverse and probably incorrect sense that US 'acceptance' is tantamount to such respect.

The US, both privately and publicly, could justify taking this path with North Korea, and a different path with Iran, because North Korea off the bat has a better outlook for success, according to the 'Asian Tiger' model.

Having spent four years in Korea, including a couple as the tiger was developing and after it was pretty well grown plus a couple in Iran prior to the '79 revolution, I disagree -- the 'Middle East Lion' could be Iran; it has a better chance at that than any other in the region to include Iraq even with our help (which isn't likely to be forthcoming).

Nevertheless, this strategy has already been applied in Iran, under the Clinton administration...

Clinton visited Iran? I missed that totally...

Overtures were made by Clinton and flummoxed by Congress as had occurred with overtures by Reagan, the difficulty in relations with Iran (as with Cuba and North Korea) is in the Congress, WH overtures to fix that even under George W. Bush (his Father didn't even really try), were routinely deflected by Congressional hard liners -- as were possible overtures to China by Johnson before Nixon. Dick and Henry just pulled an end run. Good for them. Most Administrations aren't that ballsy.

...but not North Korea, rendering that point irrelevant anyway.

Few points are irrelevant in international relations; too many variables to summarily dismiss anything.

What I'm thinking of here is a historical apology for the Korean War, based on more effective ways the US could have won the Cold War.

Heh, you're correct about derailing the thread, I suspect. I'll let that go for now but will agree with you that there were far more effective ways for the US to have handled the Cold War. I do not agree with use of the word 'win' in that respect as I'm not at all convinced it's over. No bodies have been buried...

...And of course a lot of problems would also have been solved if the US simply fought the war more effectively and defeated the North, but we can't exactly say that.

Having been there at the time, I can agree that the war could have been fought far more effectively -- we tried to fight a land war in northern Europe while in Asia (a bad habit of ours...) -- I will also point out that defeat of the 'North' would have entailed a lengthy irregular postwar cleanup problem that would easily have rivaled Viet Nam. Oh -- and that you seem to, as MacArthur tried to, ignore the Chinese...

Umm, what kind of time scale are you thinking of here? Tens, or hundreds, of years?

A few score for Germany, whatever it takes for the far more patient Japan to include "hundreds." Both with the caveat that time will cure some of that as the world modifies and anger fades, thus the desire and thus the capability will diminish over time but either would take advantage of any opportunity or weakness to achieve to offset their known population decline which will adversely affect their ability for payback which a good many in both nations think is deserved.