US student’s death harms already poor relations with North Korea

The death of a 22-year-old college student in Ohio on Monday has dashed any hopes of a quick detente between the U.S. and North Korea.

President Trump said the American government should have secured his release sooner and called his treatment “a disgrace” and the North Korean government “a brutal regime.”

The furor in the U.S. over Warmbier’s death recalls the raw emotions felt after a chemical weapons attack in Syria killed children, which prompted Trump to fire cruise missiles at Bashar Assad’s regime.

Yet dropping bombs on Kim Jong Un’s nation — an option Trump’s administration says is still on the table — is so risky that many analysts see it as implausible.