Korea snubs History

As History unfolded itself yesterday, South Korea lamely produced this first official statement : we will not renegociate the US-ROK FTA.

Come on.

Even Iran came out with a white flag. China's Premier Wen Jiabao made a new display of his great intelligence, and only Russia uttered harsh critics via Dmitri Medvedev.

This is not only the worst way of starting a discussion but an embarrassingly counter-productive way of showing muscle.

Instead of congratulations (not to mention French-style contrition for the way the country is coping with multi-ethnicity at home), this friendly country acted if it were the sole member of an obsolete, Bush-era-, segment-of-one- coalition of the unwilling.