Ahem.
Godfuckingdammit!!!
There. I feel better. Not really.
Kim Jung Il sent Bush a personal note in 2002 inviting discourse over the nuclear proliferation issue. What did Bush do about it? Nothing.
More below.
He didn't even respond to the invitation to bargain, it appears. Now I grant you, chances are that Pyongyang's proposed terms were probably unacceptable. But you send the guy a reply. You submit a counter-proposal. You offer a thanks for the correspondence, and keep the dialogue going. What you do
not do, is let a paranoid delusional sociopath twist in the wind wondering whatever happened to his message. Why? Because this happens:
But the administration spurned engagement with Kim who, in response, the authors said, moved within weeks to expel the U.N. inspectors from the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty and reopen plutonium facilities that had been shut down since 1994 under an agreement with the Clinton administration.
So, praytell, why did the administration fail to respond to the personal message? Was it because the terms were so ridiculous that they didn't want to dignify them? Was it because they didn't believe Kim Jung Il was serious? No. It's because they were busy planning a big, giant fiasco.
As Gregg and Oberdorfer point out, at the time they delivered Kim's message to senior officials in Washington, the administration was deeply immersed in what turned out to be an unsuccessful diplomatic effort in the UN Security Council to head off war with Iraq.
Raise your hands if you've just about had it.