Kim Jong Il has made a sport of defying U.S. efforts to halt his country’s burgeoning nuclear program, essentially thumbing his nose at the international community in October by staging North Korea’s first nuclear test. Today, after the U.S. government’s latest diplomatic overture failed, the Bush administration was forced to take swift and decisive action intended to hit Kim where it hurts – that is, to cut off exports of luxury goods, such as yachts, plasma TVs, Rolexes, and iPods to North Korea in conjunction with the U.N. Also embargoed is Kim’s favorite French cognac, Hennessy, which is certain to agitate “Dear Leader,” who is reputed to purchase upwards of $700,000 per year of the stuff. As the AP points out, these trade sanctions seem squarely targeted at Kim, a connoisseur of the finer things in life, who’s one of the few people in the impoverished nation who can afford to indulge his taste for extravagances. It remains to be seen whether this effort will bring North Korea back into the diplomatic fold. But one would think that Kim, whose regime has successfully negotiated the nuclear black market, probably won’t have a great deal of trouble getting his hands on some outlawed hooch.
