The war of words between North Korea and the United States escalated Thursday, with North Korea's Foreign Ministry lashing out at Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in unusually personal terms for "vulgar remarks" that it said demonstrated "she is by no means intelligent."
Clinton, who earlier this week likened North Korea to an unruly child, has rallied international isolation of North Korea at a 27-member regional security forum here. She met with her Russian, Chinese, South Korean and Japanese counterparts -- the other key partners in suspended six-nation disarmament talks -- and won strong statements of support from many delegations.
On Wednesday night, she even sent a delegation of U.S. officials to meet with diplomats from Burma, which has strained relations with Washington, to press for compliance with a U.N. Security Council resolution barring exports of North Korean arms and missiles. The resolution was passed after North Korea detonated a second nuclear device. On Thursday, Burma announced it would comply.
"There is no place to go for North Korea," Clinton told reporters after reading a nearly seven-minute statement outlining U.S. policy on North Korea. "They have no friends left."
Good job Hillary, now if ya'll would just please take that same type of stance on Iran.
CBS News:
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made statements about Iran Wednesday that are causing a bit of a stir in Israel.
In a television interview in Bangkok, Clinton talked about extending a "defense umbrella" over U.S. allies in the Middle East in the event Iran develops a nuclear weapon.
"We want Iran to calculate what I think is a fair assessment: that if the United States extends a defense umbrella over the region, if we do even more to develop the military capacity of those (allies) in the Gulf, it is unlikely that Iran will be any stronger or safer because they won't be able to intimidate and dominate as they apparently believe they can once they have a nuclear weapon," Clinton said, according to the Associated Press.
The reaction from Israel was swift, with some expressing concern that the comments were an indication that the U.S. would accept a nuclear-armed Iran.
"I heard, unenthusiastically, the Americans' statement that they will defend their allies in the event that Iran arms itself with an atomic bomb, as if they have already reconciled with this possibility, and this is a mistake," Dan Meridor, Israel's minister for secret services, told Army Radio, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
"Now, we don't need to deal with the assumption that Iran will attain nuclear weapons but to prevent this," Meridor added.
Tough on North Korea but laid back about Iran?
Despite North Korea's assertions, Hillary Clinton is a smart women, certainly smart enough to understand that Iran is a threat to the world of massive proportions.
Her hands may be tied a bit because it is not her administration but Obama's, but someone needs to take this situation in hand, pressure China and Russia and cut Iran off at the knees to stop their nuclear weapons program.
There is no "if" Iran obtains nuclear weapons, they cannot be allowed to do so. Period.
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