What we have in North Korea is a rogue nation that refuses to abide by any U.N. resolutions and a U.N. that is completely incapable of enforcing it’s decisions. It was a slap in the world’s face when North Korea announced they’d be exiting six party discussions aimed at convincing them to completely dismantle their nuclear program.

The latest news on North Korea indicates that the Russian Foreign Minister is currently in the country for talks, the subject of which we can only hope will be their nuclear program. Though, it appears that North Korea is further distancing itself from the rest of the world - this is especially visible in their relations with South Korea.

It will be interesting to see how President Obama handles diplomacy with North Korea. Obama is going to face similar situations and decisions as those presented to President George W. Bush during his presidency. Iraq was, and now Iran is also, a rogue nation that laughed and mocked the U.N. at every turn. Bush took a somewhat controversial step and invaded Iraq when he believe Saddam Hussein was developing ‘WMD’s. When it comes to Iran and North Korea we know they are developing nuclear technology and neither Bush nor Obama have said anything to imply that there may be consequences for defying the U.N. and developing these nuclear programs anyway.

Given how low the approval ratings were for Bush’s actions towards Iraq, among conservative and liberals, what is the best course of action for President Obama? What should Obama do: Take a hard line stance similar to Bush’s? Stand by and do nothing? Is there a third option?