North Korea is the place where foreign policy hawks go to die. It's embarrassing to watch. Every now and then over the past seven decades we have had politicians who think they're clever because their trusted advisors told them "we'll find a new way to threaten them," "let's offer them something," "you're really smart, you've got this, and nobody has noticed that you're orange" and so on, and they issue some tough talk about North Korea. It's hard to describe how inadequate their diplomacy has always been to the task. Their diplomacy is like the Visigoths trying to pull down the hated remnants of the Roman Empire, like bridges and aqueducts and so on, using oxen and ropes and inevitably failing. Something like that. North Korea is a tough problem.

Iran is more straightforward. I don't know why we've been so reluctant to make real diplomatic effort, especially after so many of Iran's proxies were significantly weakened in the last year or two, and Iran's sway was at a minimum. There seems to be an unwritten rule that once we've categorized a country as an enemy we're obligated to deal with them in the dumbest ways imaginable.