The Bush administration tries something new in North Korea

Right.

To some degree the effort arises from Washington's lack of leverage over North Korea, and the absence of good military options, and it is far from clear that the administration's development of what one official calls "new instruments of pressure" will work. More than four decades of economic embargos of Cuba, tried by nine presidents, have failed, largely because European, Canadian and Latin American allies have not joined in. Nor have they succeeded against the Burmese, also a major source of drugs. The Secret Service has tried for years to halt North Korean counterfeiting dollars, and Australia and Japan have tried to end its sales of amphetamines and heroin.

Beyond the Cuban (and Myanmar...and Iraqi...and...etc.) example already deemed such a success at toppling a regime, hasn't North Korea already been in a kind of self-imposed quarantine? And that hasn't exactly curbed their nuclear ambitions.

I have read that George W. Bush enjoyed torturing small animals as a child. So perhaps he has more experience in this than I do, but I always thought it was a mistake to take a cornered, terrified animal, and begin poking it with sticks.