Kim Jong-Il Won't Back Down

That's the message of this piece in today's Washington Post by David Ignatius, echoing the views of a former top CIA analyst. Ignatius gives a short history of North Korea's nuclear ambitions, then explains why there is virtually no chance Kim Jong-Il will give up on those ambitions. George W. Bush is entirely right that the correct solution here is multilateral; Jong-Il may rattle his saber at the Americans, but it's the Japanese and Chinese (and, needless to say, the South Koreans) who stand to lose the most if Kim is not contained. In the end, my gut says, it is Beijing that will ultimately decide how the cards play out.