As ye sow, dumbass, so shall ye reap.

Let's see if we can connect the dots here, shall we?

2003:

Pyongyang, calling a senior American official "human scum" for criticizing North Korea's leader, banned him from U.S.-proposed multilateral talks on its suspected development of nuclear weapons.

North Korea said that it won't deal with U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton because he described communist leader Kim Jong Il as a "tyrannical dictator" and said "life is a hellish nightmare" for many North Koreans.

Mr. Bolton made the remarks during a visit to South Korea last week.

2005:

North Korea blasted President Bush's appointment of Undersecretary of State John Bolton, one of the toughest critics of Pyongyang, as new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, saying he would only raise tensions in the international community.

"The most undesirable person was named U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, thus raising tension in the United Nations and international community," said Choson Sinbo, the newspaper run by a Pyongyang-aligned organization of ethnic Korean residents in Japan...

Bolton took a vehement stand against North Korea when he was serving as undersecretary of state for arms control. He once described North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Il as "tyrannical" and called the life in the Stalinist state a "hellish nightmare."

2006:

North Korea said Monday it had performed its first nuclear weapons test, an underground explosion that defied international warnings but was hailed by the communist nation as a "great leap forward" for its people.

Gosh. You think that, maybe if this had been handled a bit differently, there might have been another outcome? Just sayin'.

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE PROBLEMS WITH DOTS, Josh Marshall draws the lines for you:

... For the US this is a strategic failure of the first order...

... As recently as 1994, the US came far closer to war with North Korea than most Americans realize.

President Clinton eventually concluded a complicated and multipart agreement in which the North Koreans would suspend their production of plutonium in exchange for fuel oil, help building light water nuclear reactors (the kind that don't help making bombs) and a vague promise of diplomatic normalization.

President Bush came to office believing that Clinton's policy amounted to appeasement. Force and strength were the way to deal with North Korea, not a mix of force, diplomacy and aide. And with that premise, President Bush went about scuttling the 1994 agreement, using evidence that the North Koreans were pursuing uranium enrichment (another path to the bomb) as the final straw...

All diplomatic niceties aside, President Bush's idea was that the North Koreans would respond better to threats than Clinton's mix of carrots and sticks.

Then in the winter of 2002-3, the US prepared [to] invade Iraq, the North called Bush's bluff. And the president folded. Abjectly, utterly, even hilariously if the consequences weren't so grave and vast.

George W. Bush: Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory one more time.

UM ... WHAT THE FUCK? Can someone explain this to me? (emphasis added)

Wednesday, 3 April, 2002, 12:06 GMT 13:06 UK
US grants N Korea nuclear funds

The US Government has announced that it will release $95m to North Korea as part of an agreement to replace the Stalinist country's own nuclear programme, which the US suspected was being misused.

Under the 1994 Agreed Framework an international consortium is building two proliferation-proof nuclear reactors and providing fuel oil for North Korea while the reactors are being built.

In releasing the funding, President George W Bush waived the Framework's requirement that North Korea allow inspectors to ensure it has not hidden away any weapons-grade plutonium from the original reactors.

President Bush argued that the decision was "vital to the national security interests of the United States".

So, if I read this correctly, while howling about the unspeakable evil that is North Korea and its leadership, the Bush administration simultaneously gives them money and cancels a critical oversight feature of their entire nuclear program, but that's OK because it's somehow in the security interests of the United States.

I repeat, what the fuck?