“How to deal with a nuclear-armed North Korean rogue state, mad and bad both, is not easily addressed. The US understandably does not want to go it alone with a military option, given the way members of the Security Council played politics over the need to remove Saddam Hussein and are ducking and diving on how to deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But diplomacy does not work with the North Koreans... [T]he North Koreans have continued to up the ante, taking all the aid on offer while continuing to try to build a bomb, and a missile to deliver it. There is no doubting that the diplomacy of containment has failed. But rather than blame the Americans—imagine the outcry if the US went it alone in blockading North Korea’s coasts or bombed its nuclear facilities—it is time to hold the Security Council to account. The very existence of the North Korean regime is an affront to everything the UN is supposed to stand for. Millions are thought to have died in the last famine and malnutrition is a way of life. The country is ruled by hereditary dictator Kim Jong-il, one part buffoon to many parts Big Brother. And its export income depends on running drugs and counterfeit currency and selling weapons. It is time for the permanent members of the Security Council to stop pussyfooting... The whole world is watching for a sign that the UN can do more than talk.”

—The Australian