North Korea dismantled a nuke plant on Friday.
>
> I don't know if the 6-Party Talks is the reason, but it is easy to think the
> Bush strategy played a role in Kim Jung Il's decision. It is interesting to
> note that North Korea kept this our of their own news reports AND made
> statements of America's hostility toward the shut-off country.
>
> Bush said what he would do and did what he said, and now North Korea is
> taking apart a huge part of the program that makes it dangerous to her
> neighbors. This is the hallmark of a good President.
But causing the nuclear dismantlement to be delayed by five years is not the hallmark of a good president; it's a hallmark of GW Bush. He could have actually sped up the process by pressing North Korea in early 2002, just after the US ousted the Taliban and put the whole world in awe. He could have also done something about Iran's nuclear program back then, but he lacked the vision to exploit one of the the biggest diplomatic opportunities in history.
And let's not ignore North Korea's nuclear bomb failure, which certainly could not have encouraged them to continue their defiance.