The U.S. has recently raised the possibility of a long-planned embargo of North Korea, but the Chinese and the Russians are against it, and probably won’t vote for it in the UN Security Council. However, I have it from a very good on-the-scene source that the U.S. isn’t waiting for the UN to act. U.S. Navy ships are already blockading shipping coming into North Korea, and they aren’t letting anything out, either.

If true, this is a very dangerous course to take: the North Koreans, a cranky lot in any case, are not likely to take kindly to it. An incident is inevitable, one that could escalate rather quickly into a full-scale conflict on the Korean peninsula.