North Korea - What Next?

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What happens when Kim Jong Il dies?

Oh, North Korea, so predictably unpredictable:

'North Korea, denouncing the South for drawing up a contingency plan to deal with the potential collapse of the Northâ??s government, said on Friday that it would cut off all dialogue with South Korea and exclude it from all negotiations concerning the security of the Korean Peninsula. North Korea will also wage a â??pan-national holy war of retaliation to blow awayâ? the South Korean government, said a statement from the Northâ??s highest ruling agency, the National Defense Commission, which is headed by the national leader, Kim Jong-il.

The threat was surprising less for its stridency, which is not unusual in diatribes against the South and the United States, than for its timing. Only Thursday, North Korea had proposed holding talks with the South on reviving joint tour programs, which have been stalled for more than a year over the shooting death of a southern tourist and the Northâ??s anger over Seoulâ??s policies.

'

The American Interest has a good round table on North Korean policy. The upshot seems to be that most analysts think that regime change is not only the optimal outcome but essentially an inevitable one - Kim Jong Il won't live forever and what comes next could be quite chaotic if it's not handled correctly by all the parties involved.

Unfortunately, as the news today demonstrates, any efforts to think about this problem publicly tend to provoke tirades from the North. But let's hope that privately, contingency planning among China, the U.S. and South Korea is ongoing...

(AP Photos)

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