LOS ANGELES — The Grand Asian Master, no more than a few thousand years old, appeared to me the other night (as he does from time to time) and asked what I wish for these days.
North Korea: I told him that I dream of North Korea's "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il deciding to feed his people instead of his military. I dream he finally concludes that the six-party nuclear-disarmament agreement is the only way his country will ever crawl out of the hole because it hugely obligates the West to come to the North's aid. In fact, as the aid pours in, the Dear Leader hands power over to his nonbelligerent foreign minister and flees to Libya. Months later the nation is put under U.N. Trusteeship.
Japan: I imagine that a cabal of cutting-edge Japanese engineers clones Junichiro Koizumi, a former brilliant prime minister who, amazingly, lasted for a full term and got Japan's polity and economy moving again. With one difference: They manage to extract the ultranationalist gene from his double helix that so aggravated Japan's neighbors, leaving intact this otherwise political Houdini. The current prime minister, Yasuo Fukuda, is doing much better on the regional-relations front, but otherwise, alas, he is no Koizumi. Japan badly needs leadership of the Koizumi kind.