Where now? Well, we know that sanctions have never brought down a single tyrant in the history of their use. In fact, as Cuba demonstrates, they provide a substantial prop for power based on impoverishment. On the other hand, the idea that no North Korean provocation, however outrageous, can be confronted, lest it provide a pretext for the “Mount Paektu Bloodline” to do something truly insane cannot be tolerated much longer. “Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last,” Churchill said about a different, but similar, madman.