The U.S. has informed UN members of its intent to up sanctions against North Korea under the UN Security Council resolution condemning the North's missile tests in July. Washington is expected to take the measures some time after the South Korea-U.S. summit on Thursday. Among the measures are inspections of North Korean vessels suspected of carrying technology related to weapons of mass destruction and designation of some foreign banks involved in the North's U.S. dollar counterfeiting and money laundering as "primary money-laundering concerns."

North Korea will suffer. Japan has already prepared sanctions against the North since July. The extent of the pain the North will feel depends on whether China and Russia join the sanctions, and if so whether their participation will be substantial or a formality.

South Korea has been put into a fix because of the U.S. sanctions. Were South Korea-U.S. relations not as strained as they are, an issue as important as sanctions against North Korea would be announced after the two allies fine-tune their positions at the summit and carried out in unison. If our president believed sanctions against the North are inappropriate now, he might have got them put off by proposing that the two allies give North Korea another chance.

But President Roh Moo-hyun is heading to the summit with his opposition to sanctions against the North already on the record, while the U.S. is ready to take them regardless of our president’s position. South Korea's support and cooperation would be welcome, but the U.S. will go ahead even without them, a senior U.S. official has said.

This government, standing uneasily halfway between the U.S. and North Korea, attempted to mediate between them with a "Seoul-style solution." As a consequence, Seoul has completely lost Washington’s trust, but neither has it gained a new handle on Pyongyang. That is what happens when you ignore a basic rule of diplomacy: that mediation is possible only when a mediator enjoys the firm trust of, or have considerable influence on the parties. But our diplomacy, weaving its erratic way at the direction of an amateurish command post, has lost its way in the maze.