Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told the Council on Foreign Relations that it was a matter of rationality: “Iran has this patina, at least, of this super-religious extreme folks that might actually not care if they were wiped out in response to one of their attacks. There are some folks in Iran who … might actually care less … than the North Koreans do, because the North Koreans care only about regime-serving.” Unlike Iran, where leaders value religion more than the state, North Korea cares too much about its own survival to ever actually use its bomb.

Put another way, we mock them because the Kim regime, more than any other, has remained steadfast in its vehement rejection of American hegemony without interruption and longer than any other current regime – and because we know they intend to keep it up. We got used to the North Koreans being awful, but just not awful enough to merit a major military response. We’re tired of it. It’s hard to tell a new story when nothing changes, and in North Korea not much has changed in years. Despite diplomats’ occasional perceptions of openings, it would be charitable to say we’re even back to square one in changing their behavior. Because the news isn’t new anymore, we forget. They torture their own people, they threaten us, they rattle sabers, and we mock them because they’ve been threatening and rattling sabers for years. And still nothing changes.