What if Kim Jong Il is the one who’s sane?

For nearly two decades the world’s media has been speculating about the mental health of Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s “Dear Leader” and card-carrying member of the Axis of Evil. Most recently the Dear Leader has been exciting the international community by conducting underground nuclear tests, launching ballistic missiles, threatening to invade South Korea, throwing foreign reporters into prison and flipping the world the bird.

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This isn’t the first time a leader of North Korea has undertaken such shenanigans, as is evidenced by the pirating of the US Navy vessel “Pueblo” on the high seas back in 1968 under the rule of Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il’s father. It appears the younger Kim learned well from his father as a few years into the Clinton Administration he began firing off ballistic missiles through Japanese air space and bragged about developing a nuclear weapon. Each and every time the Dear Leader flexes his diminutive muscles and blows the West a raspberry, the world has expressed “umbrage” and demanded that North Korea conform to the mores and values of civilized nations worldwide. Endless meetings and resolutions by the UN Security Council resulted in “strongly worded” diplomatic letters being delivered to Kim, which presumably wound up being used to kindle the fireplace at Kim’s residence. At the same time, the Dear Leader has somehow managed to gain concessions, particularly from countries like the US in the form of financial aid, food shipments and free oil. One is given to wonder what is so “insane” about a leader who can perform these kinds of shenanigans and consistently come out smelling like a rose at the end of it. One is even driven to wonder, whether it’s the world leaders who are really insane, given that they keep doing the same things in their interactions with the Dear Leader, yet expect that there be different results. The most recent flare up resulted in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warning the Dear Leader that North Korea might be put back on the list of nations that sponsor terrorism. OOOH, scary stuff. One can just see the Dear Leader quaking in his platform shoes as the prospect of something so dreadful as being added back onto the list of terrorist states looms large. What’s next? Condemnation at the General Assembly? Taking “strong action”? A time out? It seems to me that the world has all this backwards. Kim Jong Il is perfectly sane because he knows every time he rattles his nukes or publicly exposes his No Dong, there is “dismay”, “umbrage”, “concern” and the threat of “grave consequences”, followed by a whole lot of goodies finding their way into the Dear Leader’s coffers. The so-called world community, on the other hand, needs to have its collective head examined for believing that any deal they make with the Dear Leader will be honored for any length of time and all the threats currently being made will have any affect on his behavior. Instead of threatening to put North Korea back on the poop-list, the world might want to look at alternatives, like naval blockades and resolute military action. But the Dear Leader understands that it’s a lot easier to huff and to puff than it is to actually blow his house down.