CLAUDIA ROSETT: North Korea, Unrestrained.

To be fair to Tillerson, he joins a long roster of American diplomats who over the years have tried to cope with the intractable problem of North Korea by seeing (or at least professing to see) what they want to see. Going back at least to the early days of the Clinton administration, Washington has developed rituals in which American officials proclaim that North Korea’s regime has a choice: to continue its rogue pursuit of nuclear weapons and suffer various penalties, or give them up and enjoy the many perquisites of life as a conventionally armed murderous totalitarian state.

It seems reasonable by now to say that North Korea’s regime made its choice decades ago, and has stuck with it — cheating its way out of a series of nuclear deals reached under Presidents Clinton and Bush, and availing itself of President Obama’s passive”strategic patience” to complete a transition of power from the late tyrant Kim Jong Il to his son, the current tyrant, Kim Jong Un, and accelerate its nuclear missile program.

Nor, despite the occasional week or so of apparent restraint, is there any sign that North Korea’s Kim regime intends to restrain itelf.

We’re out of easy outs.