Thursday Opinion
Today’s Editors’ Choice
- Victor Davis Hanson: West Can Neither Live With Nor Take Out North Korean Nukes
- R. Emmett Tyrrell: The American Left’s Downward Spiral
- Jeff Jacoby: What Rick Perry Really Said About Supply and Demand
To view all of today’s opinion, click here.
Opinion in Brief
Victor Davis Hanson: “Kim Jong Un rightly assumes that wealthy Western nations would prefer to pay bribe money than suffer the loss of a city — and that they have plenty of cash for such concessions. He is right that the medicine of taking out Kim’s missiles is considered by Western strategists to be even worse than the disease of living with a lunatic regime that has nukes. No wonder that the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations had few answers to serial North Korean lying and deceit about its nuclear intentions. … Sanctions have in the past crippled Pyongyang. But this time around they should not be lifted despite the prospect of ensuing chaos in North Korea. It may be tragic that a captive population suffers for the lunacy of its leader, but such misery is still preferable to an all-out war. Nor should China be exempt from accompanying stiff trade restrictions. … Australia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the U.S. need to coordinate a massive missile defense project aimed at ending North Korean assumptions that even one of its missiles has a chance to reach its intended target. Such a Marshall Plan-like investment would also send a message to China that its own nuclear deterrent could be compromised and nullified by the defensive efforts of its immediate neighbors. … We are nearing an existential showdown, as failed efforts at bribery and appeasement have run their course. Only a tough, messy confrontation now can prevent a disastrous war later on.”