Will Barach Obama blink in dealing with North Korea?

Former staff writer of the Asahi Shimbun Takahashi Kosuke raise this question. The newly elected American president has not lost sleep thinking of Kim Jong il, 18Brumaire dares saying. Furthermore, negotiations with North Korea is not a very high priority faced as America is with the worst economic crisis in a century. Freelancer Takahashi thumbs his worry beads that Mr. Obama is not cut from the diplomatic cloth to hold his own with Mr. Kim. He sweats at the thought the future 44th American president will engage in discussions with Pyongyang without preconditions. Well, old darling, wipe your brow. Preconditions do exist, and they were hammered out by the reluctant suitor George W. Bush who scrambled for a foreign policy "win" before his lackluster years in office came to an end. Furthermore, much to his neo con supporters, not only did Mr. Bush flinch but he blinked in dealing with Mr. Kim, in negotiating a way out to defuse and shut down North Korea's nuclear programme. Mr. Obama is cool as a cumcumber, more sure of himself, and what's more will have a team which will be of one mind with him; something which Mr. Bush didn't on the question of North Korea. Takahashi has swallowed whole the red herring that talks with "preconditions" lead to complete capitulation. It doesn't. Had he looked into his own cabbage patch of Japan, he would've perhaps, seen that Tokyo's dealings at first with neighbouring Beijing were predicated on the assumption that it was alright to agree to disagree, thereby sidestepping thorny issues of Japan's agression in China in the 1930's and 1940's. Let's face it, like Mr. Bush, Takahashi has a visceral dislike of Kim Jong il, and like the bogey man that a child endows with extraordinary powers, he projects his own fears on to Mr. Obama.