The likely Republican presidential candidate, U.S. Senator John McCain, has called North Korea "the most horrible regime probably on earth." In an interview with Pajamas Media, a site operated by American journalists and bloggers, McCain said, this is the regime “that has got hundreds of thousands of people in the gulag. They’re terrible." He added, "So the regime offends me, just in their terrible mistreatment and abuse of their own people." McCain, a Vietnam War veteran, has maintained a consistently hardline stance on North Korea, but this was his clearest statement yet why. Asked if he would remove North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terrorism, as the Bush administration is expected to do if the North abandons its nuclear program, McCain said, "I would not. I didn’t believe in the [1994] KEDO agreement that president [Bill] Clinton made," which promised North Korea peaceful use of nuclear energy, "and I don’t believe in this one."
Earlier, Democratic contender Senator Barack Obama said he had “no illusions about North Korea" and indicated he would not take the same conciliatory approach to the North as the current administration if he wins the election.
Senator Hillary Clinton, his rival in the Democratic Party, is being advised by foreign and security experts who called for a preemptive strike against North Korea's nuclear facilities during the first North Korean nuclear crisis in 1994.
Pundits say North Korea thus faces chillier winds whoever becomes U.S. president in January next year.
