“Mark my words.  It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

For all of his gaffes, Joe Biden just might have been right.  After testing a nuclear bomb underground over the weekend, North Korea has now test-launched two short range missiles, introducing what might be the crisis that Big Joe was referring to.  Of course, the President has not exactly been short on “tests” in his first four months in office.  Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, and Somali pirates constitute quite the international plateful for a newly elected president. But nuclear tests by whackjob regimes are basically per se global crises.

As of now, the President has limited his response to labeling the North Korean action as “a grave threat.“  While some would have wanted a stronger choice of words, this seems like a sufficient first step.  But, at the end of the day, North Korea is likely not a very big test for President Obama anyway.  The international community is virtually unanimous in its condemnation of Kim Jong Il’s conduct.  Even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came out and condemned the dictator.  Thus, it’ll likely be easy to get the world to speak in one voice against North Korea and to place sufficient pressure on Kim Jong Il to cease his activity.

Moreover, Kim Jong Il (or Lil’ Kim, as Bill Maher likes to call him) might be the most paranoid person on the planet.  All he cares about is the security of his regime and, arguably, improved conditions for his people (We all know they need it.  Take a look at this image – North Korea is the dark spot sandwiched between South Korea and China).  He has no global ambitions – his interests are purely inward looking and the last thing he would want to do is fire a nuclear weapon.  However, he would love to use the weapon as a bargaining chip for international aid to be pumped into the country.

Of course, it seems like a problematic precedent to legitimize the development of nuclear weapons in return for aid.  But North Korea is an example unique to North Korea.  Considering the country’s limited, perhaps even less threatening, intentions, the President would be wise to engage in the policy of negotiation that both Clinton and (eventually) Bush adopted.  Notwithstanding the extreme unlikelihood that North Korea would actually fire a nuclear weapon, I think we would rather keep the Korean peninsula from going nuclear.  If that goal can be bought with aid, so be it.

The administration could also spin such a result as the product of some of the diplomatic idealism that got Barack Obama elected.