A couple weeks ago, I made fun of George W. Bush for claiming after North Korea’s failed Taepo Dong-2 missile test, that the United States had a “reasonable chance” of shooting said missile down—mostly because it seemed pretty ludicrous to me to boast about our ability to intercept a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile days after we knew it had already failed two minutes after its launch. It was a statement that necessitated a few qualifiers for Bush—among them, “at least that’s what the military commander has told me”—because selling the argument for rekindling missile defense required his audience to buy into a hypothetical situation: that we could have shot down the missile had it come within proximity of United States borders.

Of course, this didn’t happen. The Taepo Dong-2 missile, which was designed to test what U.S. intelligence believes to be a 3-stage ICBM with a range of 3,000-3,700 miles, didn’t make it past its initial booster phase. Technically speaking, the Taepo Dong-2 could reach Hawaii and Alaska. But more important was the symbolic nature of the test—not just for its July 4th launch, but for the psychological boost it gave to both the Great Leader in tormenting his arch nemesis, and to missile defense proponents in the United States. As Lt. General Robert Gard and John D. Isaacs wrote on the Web site for the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation: “These events represent a symmetrical international Kabuki dance: the North Koreans tested a missile with no idea whether or not it would function as intended, and the United States activated a missile defense system without evidence that it has the capability to intercept the North Korean missile.” And even more revealing of the symbiotic nature between NMD proponents and countries like North Korea is a quote from Donald Rumsfeld after the launch of the original Taepo Dong missile in 1998, “God bless you, Kim Jong.”

Kim Jong Il’s behavioral patterns aren’t unpredictable. The megalomaniacal dictator’s strident cries for attention are usually metered out when the world’s news focus is elsewhere. And it works, with a huge impact. If Kim Jong Il was half as good at feeding his country, the Taepo Dong-2 might have flown another five minutes (a joke seized upon by political cartoonists). The failure of the launch actually means very little for North Korea because Kim has the United States eating out of his hand, so to speak (a bad, unintended pun, I know). This isn’t to say I think North Korea has no intentions of improving its ICMBs, but more than anything, Kim sells fear; he remains obstinate in global politics and knows the U.S. is too mired in its own shitstorms in Iraq and Afghanistan (does anyone remember we’re still looking for Osama bin Laden there?) to make any military move against it, and he plays directly to the music of U.S. intelligence and defensive policy: the it could happen criteria.