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What sort of assurances are sufficient?

What if the assurances are required, not from Korea, but from your own electorate. Assurances that your electorate will accept the downside of its dreams, and you know the electorate has no idea of what that downside is?

Yes, your electorate, the people who got you to the White House. Now here’s the rub. This is the group you have to take with you, what GWB failed to do.

If your electorate wants to drop its knickers for Korea, but all the facts from your advisors tell you that all Koreans have AIDS, how do you ensure that your electorate will vote you in next time after the inevitable denoument?

Ans: Lead the electorate to work this out for itself – in the Whiskey and your toolset analogy, stop giving your electorate the gifts that you think they want.

How? Make nice. If it works, you’re a hero. When it fails, repudiation will unite the electorate against the unappreciative.

I’ll write Obama’s next election theme: “America, I prostituted you for the greater good of humanity, and this is how they treated you. I commit this nation to the restoration of fundamental American values”.

Generating an external hate figure is not the sole perogative of Korea/Iran/Islam…

I assure you,

ADE