North Korea's nukes: America's fault?

According to the Left and the BBC, everything is America's fault and more to the point, the Right in America.

On Monday I noted the BBC had a timeline of North Korea's nuclear build up which started in 2002. This conveniently makes it look like NK's entry into the nuclear power club is Bush's fault. Compare the BBC's timeline with this one. Now you see why the BBC started in 2002.

The London Times puts the blame right where it belongs - with Clinton.

How did we get into this scary state? Of course the world’s pundits are sure it is all America’s fault. The US has failed to be sufficiently engaged. The refusal to talk directly to Pyongyang and to focus all its efforts on Iraq have allowed North Korea to cruise unmolested to nuclear status.

This is, essentially, drivel. The problem with North Korea has not been an insufficiency of multilateralist diplomacy in the past ten years but an overabundance. Beginning in 1994, the Clinton Administration started the US down a course of an engagement with Pyongyang that was all carrots and no sticks. Every time the North Koreans thumbed their noses at the US and its allies, they were punished with — what? Sharp intakes of breath and shakes of the head.

Not only was the US [Clinton] unwilling to make good on its threats, but effective multilateral action also required serious efforts by other countries with real leverage over North Korea to do something. But for the past six years China has been playing a dangerous double game. It never wanted North Korea to become a nuclear power but it was quite happy that its ally kept the US, Japan and South Korea off balance with its burgeoning ambitions.