LEAVE ROCKET MAN WELL ALONE

There seems to be no stopping Kim Jong Un. On Wednesday, North Korea’s Supreme Leader, or Rocket Man, as President Trump likes to mock him, presented the world yet another proof of his evil potential. An intercontinental ballistic missile, called Hwasong-15, capable of hitting continental America was launched with a ‘super large heavy warhead’. Unlike previously, Trump did not tweet another threat of complete annihilation to the rogue nation. He was more considered this time. Sometime later, the US President spoke to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, asking the latter to clamp down further on its wild neighbour. But the wild neighbour is wild because he is not amenable to any sort of persuasion, any reason. His passport to survival is his growth threat of death to millions from the nuclear arsenal he is furiously assembling to foreclose any preemptive strike by the US-led alliance. Wednesday’s ICBM went higher than any other launched by North Korea before and were they to lower the trajectory it could well hit Washington, the Pentagon said. Though it has yet to master the technique to deliver payload, but there was unanimity in the defence community that at the rate North Korea is testing missile launching, it wouldn’t be long before they mastered the targeted payload delivery as well. In short, the time to prevaricate on Kim Jong Un is long past. But what are the options? We are afraid, not many. Any military action against North Korea can only provoke the latter to rain his missiles on South Korea, Japan and other nations, a situation which can always spiral out of control. Besides, without any idea about the location of his nukes, any preemptive strike will only result in avoidable human catastrophe. Patience, therefore, is the obvious and best response. Keeping the pressure on China to tighten the screws of economic sanctions, especially when China itself has reason to be concerned about, an impoverished but nucleararmed neighbour should be the immediate response. Also, China cannot be happy at the increasing presence of the western military alliance at its doorstep in view of the North Korean threat to its southern neighbour and Japan. But regardless of the periodic missile launches by North Korea, strategic experts are right in ruling out an immediate threat of a nuclear conflagration. The survival instinct in Kim Jong Un will prevent him from doing anything rash. Any attack on South Korea, Japan or, for that matter, the US will immediately evaporate the Rocket Man into nothingness. While the western alliance upgrades its defences, it should leave North Korea to its own devices. Sooner than later, its long-suffering people, ill-fed and ill-clothed, are bound to rise in protest against the diversion of precious funds for the nuclear programme and for the seven-star life-style of the Supreme Leader and of a handful of his hangers-on. If the possession of the weapons of mass destruction could guarantee peace all through the Cold War, there is no reason to suspect that the same nukes would not act as a deterrent now, even if these are also owned by the Rocket Man in Pyongyang. Leave him alone. Do not take notice of his madness. And pressure China to batten down all avenues of trading with North Korea. The world has no other option.