Is US willing to go along with S. Korea on Cheonan?

Patrick Cronin

BEIJING ― South Korea is doing the right thing by bringing the Cheonan incident to the U.N. Security Council, but it should be realistic about how much it can expect from the world body to assign any punitive measures against Pyongyang, said a noted U.S. security expert on East Asia.

"We don't control the U.N. We don't control the resolution. And the only resolution (if any) we could get through is going to be fairly lukewarm," said Patrick Cronin, senior director of the Asia-Pacific security program at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington-based think tank.