The Terrible Twos

Take a look at the picture of Kim Jong-un, North Korea's leader on page 3 of Thursday's Times ("North Korea Appears to Restart Plutonium Reactor," NYT 9/11/13). He looks like a big baby. He lives in fantasyland both literally and metaphorically to the extent that he's a great lover of Disney characters and he's plainly acting like a child going through the terrible two's. Significantly, in December, it will be two years that Kim Jong-un took over from his father, Kim Jong-il. So developmentally his behavior is totally normal. Thus we have a two year old having temper tantrums in which he starts smoke flying from his plutonium reactor, according to the Times article. It's actually not surprising that Dennis Rodman and Kim Jong-un have become friends. Rather than being a PR ploy, (Vice Media promoted Rodman's original trip to Pyongyang) housing the hopes of furtive diplomatic overtures, what is really significant about the alliance between Rodman and Kim Jong-un is the fact that both have a tendency to behave like children; they can be adorable at one moment and utterly horrifying the next. However, where there's smoke, there's fire and the only problem with Mr. Jong-un's current gambit is that it's bound to fail. As the Times remarked,

"Analysts said the re-emergence of steam at the plant--whether real or a contrivance--could well be designed by the North to try to force the United States and its allies into the talks in the hopes of winning economic aid by creating the fear that North Korea is preparing to add to its weapons stockpile. But the move could have the opposite effect. President Obama has been deeply reluctant to take steps that would reward North Korea for halting activities it had already agreed to stop."

{This was originally posted to The Screaming Pope, Francis Levy's blog of rants and reactions to contemporary politics, culture and art}