OP-ED: Obama's Dealing With Pyongyang (KOREA Times)

America's new foreign policy team, headed by Hillary Clinton, has started reviewing North Korea policy. Specifically, it wants to mull what else to do about the country's nuclear weapons.

As it does so, it may be useful to warn against the delusion that the country will be significantly changed by a shift in America's ― or any other country's ― policies.

This conclusion is simply stated, but hard to grasp, for it is natural in a democracy to think that your opponents, be they conservatives or liberals, are at the extreme of political stupidity, and that turning around their policies will change everything.

It is even more difficult when viewed from the United States, where the country's dominance of world affairs is easily exaggerated. Most of what happens in the world is not a result of U.S. policy.

This ``Unwashingtonian" thought leads to the next one which is that, as disappointing as it is, there is no ``big idea" that will transform North Korea from without.

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