In the latest American salvo in the growing war of words between the two nations, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the US is considering adding North Korea to the list of state sponsors of terrorism, a list it had only recently been removed from.

Clinton said the US wants to see “recent evidence of their support for international terrorism,” but did not make it clear if an inability to find that evidence would forestall the move, insisting “we’re just beginning to look at it.”

The Bush Administration had removed North Korea from the list in October, after North Korea agreed to resume deactivating its Yongbyon facility, which had been stopped just weeks before amid complaints the US was dragging its feet on removing the designation.

Now, of course, those talks are stopped again, and the US seems eager to put the nation back on the list to get back a bargaining tool. Yet with removal and readdition to the list being tied to something completely unrelated to support for terrorism, the US is likely undermining the seriousness of the list in the first place, and giving it the status of little more than a political football.

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