Atrios: "Tough" Foreign Policy

Warning...crude sexual reference at the end of this post--Dictynna

Charles Dodgson discusses us a brief excerpt from an Atlantic article about North Korea. He writes:

The newest Atlantic has an article wargaming the current North Korea mess. This is, you'll recall, a situation where Dubya came in denouncing Clinton's soft policy on negotiations, and instituted a new "get tough" policy -- the result of which is that the North Koreans now have, at least, several more nukes than they had when he entered office.

But, say Dubya's defenders, the Koreans were cheating on their deal with clinton. Replies the guy who negotiated with the Koreans for Clinton:

Excuse me. The Soviets cheated on virtually every deal we ever made with them, but we were still better off with the deal than without it. ...

When the Clinton folks went out of office, the North Koreans had only the plutonium they had separated in the previous Bush administration. Now they've got a whole lot more. What did all this "tough" shit give us? It gave us a much more capable North Korea. Terrific!