How do you mend a broken Korean heart?

North Korea Seeks Political Gain from Rocket Launch –

The world may be upset with “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il after his missile launch over the Sea of Japan this weekend…but as Presidents Bush and Clinton learned before him, President Obama doesn’t have so many options.

The North Koreans are masters of brinksmanship. They have little to lose by waving a red flags in the faces of the West, since they already live under a global seige. With tensions rising with South Korea again, the North may feel it needs to get the attention of the new U.S. administration, whothe North Koreans may feel is spending far too  much time on smaller problems, like fixing the global economy and ending the war in Iraq.

The UN can huff and puff…but as isolated as Pyongyang is…there are not too many ways to get this Stalinist Disneyland to really open up to global intervention. The Chinese could put the screws to their Korean neighbors, but Beijing would rather live with an unstable neighbor than deal with the consequences of collapse, which would push millions of hungry Koreans over their border.

So look for rhetoric, but not much change. The 6-party talks that were once used by the Bush administration in an effort to start negotiations are now probably completely dead…