A Point of Principle

The only member of the Axis of Evil which is known to have tested a nuclear bomb is to be allowed access to twenty-five million dollars which had been frozen in Macau amid the usual US accusations of counterfeiting, money laundering, organised crime and all those other things with which the Bush administration would never dream of soiling its pristine economic and moral record. In return for the release of the money, which North Korea was "seeing ... as a point of principle" (as opposed to claiming to see it as a point of principle, which is undoubtedly what those filthy Iranians would do), North Korea will close its main nuclear reactor; and in return for doing this it will receive "economic and political concessions" by agreement with South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the leader of the Coalition for Democracy, which has thereby given Iran yet another demonstration of the advantages of possessing weapons of mass destruction.