LOS ANGELES — It is true that there is not much that Lee Myung Bak could reasonably do, one way or the other, in response to the sinking of a South Korean naval patrol vessel in the Korean seas. But what little the president of that country has done, he has done near perfectly. This needs to be noted.
A penchant for caution around the Korean Peninsula is no little blessing. North Korea is a miserable economy of a country, but it is nonetheless a military force with which to be reckoned. It is one that includes, everyone assumes, some small speck of nuclear weaponry.