I think Asst. Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific and our chief envoy on North Korea negotiations Christopher Hill is one of the finest and most capable diplomats in America's foreign service -- but he not only has Kim Jong Il to outmaneuver but also has to outfox Vice President Cheney and his team who are always threatening to knife Hill from behind.

Hill has been close to some serious breakthrough deals with North Korea over the last 18 months, but each time Cheney and his team have unceremoniously and quietly strangled Hill's initiatives....

In the absence of American leadership, Japan is now flirting with harsher security options to preserve its own security. In other words, Japan is calculating that America may be so weakened or internally consistent that it can't be the guarantor of Japan's security. Counting on America less, Japan may consider adding to its security tool kit preemptive strike options of its own. Fascinating and disturbing.

Japan is far away from actually instituting such doctrine, but the fact that Japan's likely next Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is speaking out loud about such a policy is stunning. While Japan has a serious domestic allergy to home-based nukes, if America looks even less dependable in the future, Japan may flirt with nuclear weapons acquisition as well.

It's a slippery slope.

That is the cost of the failed North Korea diplomacy of George W. Bush, Vice President Cheney, Scooter Libby, John Hannah, Robert Joseph, David Addington, Stephen Rademaker, John Bolton and others.

They have failed.