It is hard to escape the conclusion that the U.N. Security Council blinked — again. Offered the chance to make a forceful denunciation of the attack on the South Korean naval corvette Cheonan, the council pulled its punches. Three months of intense negotiations yielded a statement that looks good until it is parsed. Then it falls apart as it offers a little something for anyone. Any condemnation of North Korean behavior that Pyongyang can openly label a diplomatic "victory" is clearly not tough enough.
The South Korean Navy vessel Cheonan sank as a result of an unexplained explosion March 26, resulting in the loss of 46 lives; a diver died in the days after the sinking during the search and rescue operations. The South Korean government stilled the urge to immediately denounce North Korea and instead convened a multinational investigation group — with members from South Korea, Australia, Britain, the United States and Sweden — to examine and explain what happened. The investigation concluded that the ship sank as the result of a "strong underwater explosion generated by the detonation of a homing torpedo." The torpedo was made in North Korea and "the evidence points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that the torpedo was fired by a North Korean submarine. There is no other plausible explanation."
North Korea denies the charge. Pyongyang has insisted that the entire incident is a fabrication and threatened to turn Seoul into "a sea of fire" if there was any retaliation against the North. That provided the backdrop for the Security Council deliberations.