The Economist has a nice bit of writing which sums up the cheapness of this "inconsistency" argument
All this presents Mr Bush with a double embarrassment. It risks making him look weak. For all his previous tough talk about pre-emption, Mr Bush says for now that he hopes to sort out North Korea with diplomacy, not force. It also risks making him look inconsistent. Though he claims to be seeking a diplomatic solution in Iraq as well, it is plain to all that Mr Bush is ready to go to war the moment it becomes clear that Mr Hussein has squandered his “last chance” to save himself. Why, harrumph the president’s critics, especially those who vehemently oppose war in Iraq, is America not preparing the same sauce for the Korean goose as for the Iraqi gander?
And yet the answer could not be more obvious. Mr Kim and Mr Hussein are perfect examples of the problem Mr Bush pinpointed in his evil-axis speech: the world’s most dangerous regimes seeking the world’s most destructive weapons. But the risks of using force in each case are different. This is not only because North Korea may have a few nuclear weapons already. It is because an attack on North Korea would almost certainly lead to carnage in the South. Seoul, the South Korean capital, is only a handful of miles from the demilitarised zone which separates the two countries, along which some 1m armed men are deployed. In a war the city could be flattened by the North’s artillery. Iraq has not yet acquired nuclear weapons; and its depleted missile force, though a danger, is thought to pose no equivalent threat to its neighbours. A “consistent” approach that insisted on using force in all cases, regardless of the consequences, would be an absurdity.
There is another sort of difference between Iraq and North Korea. Saddam remains in breach of a catalogue of UN Security Council resolutions, the key ones having been brought under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter, which can permit the use of force in enforcing the Security Council’s will. In the case of North Korea, no such resolutions exist. Whereas Saddam has defied the UN since the end of the Gulf War in 1991, North Korea has until recently (when the Americans found out about a secret uranium-enrichment programme) tried to give the impression of co-operating with international inspection regimes. The North Koreans have now put themselves thoroughly in the wrong; but it is reasonable to give diplomats a space of time in which to do their work. Saddam has already been granted more than a decade of jaw-jaw.
economist.com
In short, the differences are obvious, unless you are grasping at anything. |
