KOREAN CONFRONTATION – NEXT STEPS – AT 5:14 P.M. ET:  This story is not getting the attention it deserves.  It could lead to a major flareup in Asia. 

BEIJING -- South Korea said on Sunday that it would ask the U.N. Security Council to punish North Korea for its deadly attack on a South Korean warship, a move that could ratchet up pressure on the isolated Stalinist regime and mark a defining moment for Asia.

The request will come in an address to the nation Monday by South Korean President Lee Myung-bak during which Lee will detail a package of measures South Korea will take in response to the March 26 torpedoing of the 1,200-ton Cheonan and the killing of 46 sailors, according to a statement by presidential spokesman Lee Dong-kwan.

A senior U.S. official, traveling with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in China, said the United States would back "all the steps the South Koreans are going to announce tomorrow." In an indication of the seriousness with which the Obama administration views the unfolding drama, he added: "We have not faced something like this in decades."

That's an important statement, underlying a level of toughness toward North Korea that we've not seen from the Obama administration.  Question:  Is this Hillary Clinton speaking, or the president?  Will Obama back Clinton if she stands strong toward the North Koreans, or will we have the classic Obama backdown?

Among the other measures, analysts said, were cuts in South Korean trade with the North, the re-listing of North Korea on the State Department's list of states that sponsor terrorism and tighter international sanctions on Pyongyang.

Already the attack on the Cheonan is shaking the region. It has provided the political cover for Japan's new government -- only the second opposition party to take power in nearly 50 years -- to end a feud with the United States and accept a base relocation plan for U.S. Marines in Okinawa that the government had battled for eight months. On Sunday, Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama announced his country would abide by the 14-year-old agreement with the United States to move the Futenma Marine Corps air base in Okinawa to a less populated part of the island.

And...

The attack and its aftermath is also threatening China's place in the region and could force it to make an unwanted choice between South Korea and North Korea -- two countries that it has handled deftly since Beijing normalized relations with Seoul in 1992.

COMMENT:  As the great James Durante used to say, "Everybody wants to get into the act."  Follow this story closely.  It will tell us a great deal about the direction of Obama's foreign policy in Asia, where, after all, he grew up.

May 23, 2010