Re: North Korea - Miscalculation

[<KEACLA1@aol.com>]

James Robert Dennis III wrote:

<<The North Koreans do not have the skill that they once had with Kim Il 
Sung.  Kim Jong Il has not shown the political pragmatism that his father 
had...>>

I have to disagree with this.  North Korea has shown far more flexibility under Kim Jr. than under his father, although that admittedly is probably more a product of desperation--economic collapse and the loss of the Soviet Union and China as reliable allies--than of Kim Jr.'s innate intelligence or pragmatism.  Kim has played his weak hand pretty well, in the nuclear agreement and in his dealings with the South.  It would have been unthinkable in his father's era for a ROK President to visit Pyongyang.

     Keith Allen