Sir, – It is disingenuous to suggest, as The Irish Times does in its editorial of August 31st, that the crisis in North Korea is equally the fault of North Korea and the US.
Kim Jong Il is the latest in the line of hereditary communist tyrants in a regime that has overseen the mass starvation, brutalisation and enslavement of the population in an effort to stay in power no matter what the cost.
The West in general and the US in particular have tried in recent years to quietly reach some degree of detente and cooperation with North Korea (not least during Barack Obama’s presidency).
This approach was designed to persuade North Korea to set aside its illegal nuclear programme in return for material aid and economic assistance and cooperation.
North Korea has responded by taking this aid and ploughing on regardless with its nuclear plans.
It now recklessly endangers not just the Korean peninsula but the world at large and will continue to do so regardless of whether the US and the rest of the world are hostile or acquiescent.
Of course there is a major world power that can take a lion’s share of the blame for the dangerous pickle now faced by the world in this region: China.
China has repeatedly undermined UN attempts to sanction North Korea’s aggression and bring it into line for selfish short-term interests.
Had China applied a modicum of pressure on Pyongyang in the last two decades and encouraged the liberalisation of its economy, North Korea could have stability now without regime change and without having to recklessly threaten its neighbours and the world at large.
I disagree with just about everything Donald Trump says and does. However, I have to accept that his policy of focusing pressure on China in this crisis is the correct one: this is largely their mess and they are the only ones capable of cleaning it up. – Yours, etc,
C LYNCH,
Castletroy,
Limerick.