Digging a Deeper Hole

Steven Mufson: Bush and North Korea: Where's the Big Stick?. "But the administration has not appeared to have any strategy at all for exacting that price [for North Korea's violation of the Agreed Framework]. It did not make demands, as it has with Iraq. It did not make any proposals, declaring that it would not 'negotiate' until North Korea gave up all its nuclear weapons programs. Meanwhile, Pyongyang is moving ahead. A U.S. official was quoted in The Post last week as saying that the administration is playing hardball now. One observer quipped that so far it was doing nothing but taking strikes."

The asymmetry between the Bush administration's reaction to Iraq, which doesn't pose an immediate threat to the US, and North Korea, which is doing all it can to pose an immediate threat to the US, is something I just don't understand. The cynic in me wants to say, "it's all about the oil", but that seems like such a moronic rationale for letting the Korean situation start to spin out of control that even I have a hard time believing that's what Bush is thinking. But what other answer is there?