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| Barack Obama (Image: Wiki Commons) |
By Joseph A. Bosco
After an election defeat, the president appears liberated. Does this mean a tougher line on Pyongyang?
Pyongyang, Moscow and Beijing are on notice: There’s a new sheriff in town and he’s taking names. Barack Obama’s message to Kim Jong-un is clear: Though I only have two years left, I am not your grandfather’s lame-duck U.S. president. (Harry Truman reacted to Kim Il-sung’s attack on South Korea by reversing the aggression but getting mired in a no-win ground war.)
The president intends instead to respond to North Korea’s cyber-attack on Sony Pictures– which he called “vandalism” rather than an act of war – at a time, place and in a “proportionate” manner, of his choosing. But a price will surely be paid for what Kim has done.
This sounds like the kind of “smart” foreign policy Obama claims to be comfortable with, avoiding doing “stupid stuff” – like enforcing the “red line” he set in Syria (even as 200,000 Syrians died in what has been called Obama’s Rwanda).
The president is also relishing Vladimir Putin’s mounting economic problems as the ruble crumbles under the weight of falling oil prices and U.S. sanctions. He admonished CNN that Putin doesn’t look quite as clever as he did weeks ago when pundits credited him with “rolling” Obama on Ukraine. The president didn’t hide his satisfaction at that turn of events.
Read the full story at The Diplomat