Political calculus keeps Cuba on the terrorism sponsors list

The Los Angeles Times has an interesting discussion on whether or not Cuba should remain on the US government's list of state sponsors of terrorism. It's interesting from a Korea-centric perspective because the same arguments for or against it can — and should —be applied to North Korea as well.

The Bush administration took North Korea off that list as a concession, and Obama has not seen fit to put them back on despite things like the bombing of your Nintendo [stupid Siri!] Yŏnpyŏng-do Island and the sinking of the Ch'ŏnan. People like Joshua Stanton at One Free Korea say that such acts inspire fear in the South Korean people and therefore should be considered terrorism, while others point out that they are military provocations that don't fit a more precise definition of "terrorism" per se.

Four people, including two civilians, were killed when North Korea launched bombs against Yŏnpyŏng-do,  an island in the Yellow Sea, one of the isolated "Five Islands of the West Sea" that sit close to the North Korean mainland. 

I myself am on the fence about this. I think that moving them to the terrorism sponsor list again should only be done for something very serious, and perhaps those past military acts were serious enough, but I think we ought to wait until a time when such a move is part of a strategic overall plan to punish them for something they've done recently. In other words, the moment has passed for that, and we should use the threat of putting them back on the list as a way of getting them to behave right now.

...

Thanks for the heads-up, Pyongyang.

North Korea, according to Xinhua, is warning that it will use its nuclear arsenal if it is attacked by the US or South Korea:

"If Washington and Seoul try to create a conflict on the Korean Peninsula, we will respond with a holy war on the basis of our nuclear deterrent forces," said [North Korean ambassador to Cuba Kwon Sung Chol] at a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the DPRK.

"Our government will strive for the denuclearization of the peninsula and the establishment of a lasting peace as the beginning of the reunification process of the two Koreas," the diplomat said.

Despite obstacles created by the United States and South Korea, reunification will be achieved with the support of peace-loving peoples, like Cubans, he said.

I don't know if it's bad journalism or just a bad speech, but none of those three paragraphs sounds like they are coming from the same person. Certainly, committing to the use of nukes in response to a conventional conflict (first paragraph) doesn't really go hand in hand with striving for denuclearization (second paragraph), while the third paragraph, no doubt meant as a local crowd-pleaser, just sounds delusional.

Anyhoo, this kind of sentiment is why I'm always happy to hear of North Korea testing another nuclear weapon. Test them all, I says! It's the only way to know they all work.

Seriously, though, with North Korea gearing up for yet another dynastic succession, there may be disgruntled generals and apparatchiki, enough that the inner circle is anticipating dissent and they want to warn Washington and Seoul off of taking advantage of that.

That's my read, anyway. Of course, Nork politicos may just like talking about their nukes.

In the only picture I could find of Ambassador Kwon, he is seen giving Guyana President Bharrat Jagdeo a letter of credence. [source]