Sep 24, 2007

Golden parachutes for dictators or their supporters

The Emirates Economist suggests bribing dictators such as Mugabe to leave power. I wonder if a slight variation of this would work in North Korea.

I suspect that there are no high level officials in North Korea who still have any ideological devotion to their government. Rather, dictator Kim Jong-il sees to it that top officials and generals live extremely well. But North Korea is very poor so there is a limit to how much Kim Jong-il can pay his key supporters. Perhaps president Bush could announce that if Kim Jong-il is overthrown and a government friendly to the U.S. is set up then the U.S. will give the top 100 leaders of the revolution $20 million and 20 green cards each. Even if this plan didn't work, it would terrify Kim Jong-il.

Update: See this for more on this idea.