Pasted below are snippets of world opinion on North Korea's nuclear test. I believe it's instructive to listen to what the world is saying about the bad boy regime competition for nuclear weapons.
We wouldn't want to forget who the biggest bad boy weapons competitor of them all is.
The Nation, Pakistan:
The failure of the nuclear club's own members to reduce their lethal arsenals, and pursue their eventual elimination, deprives them of any moral authority to stop others from developing such weapons. This is all the more so in the case of the United States, which connived with Israel as Tel Aviv accumulated a nuclear arsenal. Washington's agreement to supply India with civilian nuclear technology scant years after its first nuclear tests, have further weakened the case of those pleading for nonproliferation.
Le Figaro, France:
“The U.S. cannot entertain the idea of a negotiated solution with 'delinquent countries' while threatening regime change, which only encourages them to acquire a weapon of peerless dissuasion.”
Kyodo News, Japan:
Asked why North Korea conducted a nuclear test in defiance of international calls for it to desist, the North Korean official in Beijing said, ''It's our inherent right as an independent, sovereign nation … Politically and diplomatically, we expressed our will to sit face to face across the negotiation table with the United States,'' he said.
JoongAng Daily, South Korea:
Now the South Korean government must chart a new course. With North Korea joining the nuclear club, a Northeast Asian arms race will follow and tensions on the Korean Peninsula are sure to increase.
The Independent - UK:
Somehow Washington must square this circle and dissuade Japan, South Korea and Taiwan from seeking their own nuclear weapons. In the end there may be no alternative to what the Bush administration has said it will never do - negotiate. "It is not appeasement to talk to your enemies," James Baker, secretary of state under the first President Bush, said at the weekend. Mr Baker was referring to Iran and Syria. But his words could apply equally to North Korea.
Cartoon via Guardian Unlimited, U.K.
North Korea Nuclear Test Politics Bush Republican Diplomacy Republicans Nuclear Arms Race
