North Korea Wants to Launch a Satellite, and Rick Santorum’s Last Stand

Tim Bean

3/24/2012

It is kind of a quiet day on the political landscape right now, which of course makes it a little hard to put a daily posting on a blog that is dedicated towards politics.  This isn’t to say that there is absolutely nothing happening; there is always something happening, it’s just that there really isn’t anything that has piqued my interests enough for me to spew forth my thoughts and opinions on them.  So, this will be another article where I just kind of sort of wing it and do a kind of stream of consciousness blog entry.

First there is the upcoming Louisiana Republican Primary which is actually being held today, March 24, and for the first time in quite some time this primary actually means something . . . well a little.  This is because of the supposed closeness of the Republican Presidential race.  I say “supposed” because the race is more and less decided.  Sure, there is an outside chance that Rick Santorum could still make it more of a competition than it is becoming, and that is exactly why today’s Louisiana primary matters.  It is essentially the equivalent of Rick Santorum’s last stand.  If he doesn’t do well here, and by well I mean he needs to win, if he is to even remotely hope that he can continue to fight it out with Mitt Romney.  The delegate math is increasingly working against him, and the increasing contentiousness between Santorum and Romney is beginning to do more harm than good for the Republican Party.  To continue the competition all the way to the Republican National Convention, as vowed by Santorum, could simply continue to expose and deepen the fractures in the Republican Party, thus making it harder to rally the party faithful in a general election against President Obama; and the ultimate goal of the Republican Party is to defeat Obama come November.  So, it won’t be too long before the party bosses begin to lean on Santorum to bow out – if they haven’t already started.   Essentially it is win or go home for Santorum today, but we will have to wait and see what the results are going to be and what Santorum’s response to those results will be, but it is safe to say that the clock is ticking – tick, tock Rick; tick, tock.

Outside of the Republican race, and in fact outside of the United States, President Obama is in South Korea today as well.  He is there for a nuclear summit with 54 countries, including Russia and China.  Growing up during the latter part of the Cold War these types of summits used to make bigger headlines, but they are no less important today, in the post-Cold War era.  In fact, they are probably more important because of the proliferation of countries that have and are pursuing nuclear weapons (chiefly Iran and N. Korea).  Speaking of North Korea, they have managed to maintain their propensity for grabbing headlines by announcing their plans to launch a satellite into space (where else would they launch one?).  This is troubling news for us “civilized” countries because if the North Koreans succeed in launch a satellite then that means they could then deliver a nuclear warhead across oceans and continents.  This means that North Korea could then leverage that ability into (1) a deterrent against a preemptive attack, because they could easily lob a nuclear missile across the Pacific towards someplace like Los Angeles, or San Francisco . . . not exactly a good thought; and (2) they could share their technology with other countries that are in pursuit of nuclear weapons, like their buddies Iran.  I don’t know about you, but the thought of governments who seem to lack rational thought, and who support the idea of violence against those who don’t share their doctrines or beliefs is an extremely frightening thing; because these governments may act rashly if they feel they are backed into a corner and instead of waiting for a coming preemptive strike by us, they could simply conduct a preemptive strike of their own.  In such a situation you can only guess what our response would be, and then the dominos would fall quickly as other countries who have nuclear weapons might feel their hands are called and may feel the need to act in a way that they feel protects their best interests.  Again, that is an extremely troubling and frightening thought.

So, as you can see it is just another quiet little Saturday in the world of politics.  Maybe something worth writing about will happen tomorrow.