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I hate to crib Glenn Greenwald's blog again, but he responded to your argument in an update to the post I cited earlier:

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A couple of commenters have argued that there is a fourth option -- U.N. sanctions -- but sanctions are properly seen as a negotiating tool and thus a subset of option (2). Sanctions are intended to pressure a country into capitulating to an agreement on favorable terms. But whether they are viewed as a tool for negotiations or as an option unto themselves, they are scorned just the same by the anti-diplomacy crowd as a form of "appeasement." The argument that is advanced is that countries such as North Korea and Iran are so irrational, deceitful and evil that they can never be trusted to comply with the terms of any agreement -- whether the agreement is brought about by negotiations or sanctions. Only regime change, via military force, provides the necessary assurances.


Sounds about right to me.


Calling me "anti-appeasment" would be accurate. However, I'm not aware of a single prominent author, speaker or commentator who considers sanctions to be a form of appeasment. I don't mind if we disagree, but I feel that's dangerously misunderstanding those whom I agree with on this subject. If we don't agree, let's at least be clear about how and what we disagree about.

I think that "skeptical towards diplomacy" is a more accurate description than "anti-diplomacy". Diplomacy is great between two sane countries but I'm not aware of it ever working with a dictatorship. The communists didn't have a great record of keeping their promises and North Korea was able to partly fund their atomic efforts and gained a soft-water reactor because we engaged in diplomacy with them (and we now know they lied from the get-go). And how are negotiations supposed to work with countries like Iran when before talks even start you have countries like France saying they will veto any call for sanctions?

To me, the real fear about North Korea is poliferation.
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Brad B.