Left Flank

It's as surprising that Pyongyang missed another deadline on December 31, 2007, as it would be fitting that 2008 will be the year the Bush administration gets Pyongyang to denuclearize.

PRC's Air China might be the first critic of the North Korean regime to take action against the recalcitrant delayer.

"It's been pushed back until March as related preparatory work is still going on," said Air China spokesman Wang Yongsheng, without elaborating. "On Air China's side, preparations are basically complete.

"There are no political reasons," he added.

Wang said Air China still saw much potential in the route, which would make Pyongyang a Star Alliance destination, the airline grouping led by Singapore Airlines, Lufthansa and United Airlines which Air China recently joined.

"Flying to Pyongyang is basically a tourist route. The main customers will be Chinese. Very few North Koreans come to China on holiday," he said. "We have a lot of confidence the route will make money."

Isolated North Korea permits only a tiny number of foreign visitors a year who must travel with an approved travel agency on tightly controlled tours.

But Chinese can visit with relative ease, and many ethnic Koreans who live across the border in China go regularly on business trips.

Previously, China Southern Airlines has flown to Pyongyang. It stopped flights in 2006 soon after North Korea carried out a nuclear test, though it was not clear if Beijing ordered the airline to drop the route.

Now that's how you repay shenanigans - with your own insult!

Meanwhile, back in the Land of Increasing Incompetence - also known as the Bush administration:

In early December, President Bush took the unprecedented step of sending a personal letter to Kim, whom he once denounced as a «tyrant,» urging him to denuclearize. The United States and its allies have dangled promises of removing North Korea from the list of «terror-sponsoring» nations as well as assistance in rebuilding the economy.

But Daniel Pinkston, a nuclear expert in Seoul for the International Crisis Group, said the U.S. has an unrealistic expectation that North Korea will follow the example of Libya's Moammar Kadafi -- who renounced nuclear ambitions and state sponsorship of terrorism in exchange for economic aid.

«They are not going to deliver on their part of the bargain on a gentleman's agreement to give them economic assistance. They are going to wait to see the money in the bank,» Pinkston said.

He also said that the Yongbyon facilities being dismantled are not the most important elements of the nuclear program. «They might be giving up obsolete junk that needs to be dismantled anyway,» he said.

The dismantling work is also behind schedule. Some of the delays are technical. For example, the U.S. experts insisted on higher safety standards than did the North Koreans in the handling of nuclear material. But other delays are the result of foot-dragging.

Last week, a North Korean Foreign Ministry official, Hyun Hak-bong, was quoted as telling Chinese and South Korean officials that his country would «adjust» the pace of dismantlement because of a «delay in the implementation of economic compensation obligations.»

One could get the notion both Pyongyang and Washington enjoy stalemate!