South Korea already has restricted financial dealings with more than 200 groups and individuals with suspected links to Iran’s nuclear program, but they rely on Iran for up to 10 percent of their oil supplies and have not yet said whether they will comply with the embargo on oil imports.

The European Union also imports a lot of oil from Iran, but is considering an embargo after intense U.S. pressure. Many EU governments are facing severe economic crises and are hesitant to impose additional self-inflicted economic pain on their own countries by abiding by U.S. demands to ban Iranian oil.

And now South Korea, too, is being asked to strain their own economy by reducing or eliminating Iranian imports. This, despite there being no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Notwithstanding hawkish rhetoric and media coverage, the opinion of the U.S. intelligence community, the Obama administration, and the latest IAEA report is that Iran’s enrichment is so far civilian in nature.

“We’re urging all of our partners to help us, to work with us in putting pressure on the government of Iran, to get it to negotiate seriously,” Robert Einhorn, the State Department’s special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control, told reporters in Seoul after a meeting with senior South Korean Foreign Ministry officials.

The harsh sanctions on Iran’s oil and banking industries are widely expected to have crippling effects on the economy and thus the well-being of ordinary Iranians who rely on the country’s natural resource market to spur economic growth. Many have pointed to similar sanctions regimes heaped on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq during the 1990s, which left the country destitute and led to hundreds of thousands of deaths.

According to officials, the plane’s GPS system failed because of jamming signals broadcast in North Korea’s cities of Haeju and Kaesong. It was forced to land just 45 minutes after it took off.

The jamming also caused problems for South Korean naval patrol boats and people in the capital city of Seoul complained of poor cell phone connections during the drill.

Tensions between North and South Korea had been rising during the period, and South Korean officials repeatedly announced new military drills along the tense naval border for several months leading up to the incident.

“North Korea shows no signs of relenting in pursuit of its nuclear capabilities,” insisted Mullen, who was visiting as Gen. James Thurman took over command of the 28,500 US troops in South Korea.

Mullen went on to declare that the US and South Korea share a “sense of urgency” regarding North Korea, even though no major incidents have been reported in upwards of a year, and said it was vital to foil future “provocations” they assumed were coming.

This sense of urgency appeared to be absent in January, when North Korea’s government called for unconditional reconciliation talks. South Korea responded by declaring the talks weren’t worth responding to. US officials likewise refused to consider talks.

According to a statement by the ministry’s spokesment, the offer for talks wasn’t even worth responding to because it wasn’t “in the correct and appropriate format,” and the government regards it as a propaganda campaign against them.

The US has also repeatedly rejected calls for talks with North Korea, though reports suggest that the Obama Administration is now at least somewhat less hostile to the notion than they were a few weeks ago.

Since a brief but deadly clash in November, South Korea has been announced a series of major wargames and officials have repeatedly commented on what they see as the inevitable annexation of North Korea.

Unlike the previous live-fire drills, the latest drill will involve computer simulated war games. North Korea, however, insists that the latest drill proves the South’s “persistent design for invasion.”

Normally such allegations, particularly from North Korea, are shrugged off as paranoia, but given the South’s determination to launch drill after drill along the border, and their repeated public talk of annexing the North as part of a long-standing goal of reunification, the comments have at least some grounding in reality.

Tensions have been on the rise on both sides of the border over the past two months, but North Korea has recently made offers to restart negotiations. Unfortunately so far it does not appear that such talks are in the offing.

North Korea, meanwhile, threatened to launch a nuclear war if the massive drilling turned into an attack on them. Both sides appear keen on harsh rhetoric since a brief exchange of fire last month, in which both sides claim the other attacked first.

The Obama Administration condemned North Korea for its comments, insisting it was deliberately provocative. The US has promised to cooperate in whatever measures South Korea takes, including potential attacks.

Despite the administration’s usual condemnation of the North, the reality is that much of the tension over the past week has come from the southern side of the border, with President Lee repeatedly talking about the annexation of North Korea as a near-term goal.

It seems far-fetched on the surface, but everyone was preparing for a major war Monday, when South Korea carried out a live-fire drill along its maritime border with North Korea, the exact same drill which last month ended with them trading fire.

That war didn’t happen, but civilians oughtn’t get too far from the bunkers just yet, as South Korea is announcing a new live-fire “mega drill,” far bigger and more provocative than the one on Monday.

The timing is particularly bizarre as North Korea has issued a few conciliatory statements in recent days, and the drill will undoubtedly be viewed not just as another military challenge but a slap in the face of those overtures.

Which seems to suit South Korean military officials just fine, as Brigadier General Ju announced the drill was about preparing to “punish the enemy” and insisted the South was ready for “surprise attacks.”

The White House condemned North Korea’s offer for talks as well, insisting they were too belligerent for negotiations. But it is the hawkish South Korean government openly talking about annexing the north in recent days, and despite the official claims to the contrary it has been the South announcing all the drills.

Indeed, it was only North Korea acting sensibly cautious that prevented a major war starting on Monday, and we all know how out of character that is for them. How many more times does the South intend to roll the dice on the North, and how many will it take before a new shooting war?

The drill was virtually identical to a previous drill which had sparked a brief but deadly exchange of fire along the border, and officials were ordering civilians into bunkers in anticipation that the new drill would start a full on war.

But North Korea, despite harsh rhetoric, didn’t bite, which is to say didn’t go along with starting the massive war, and the United States mockingly praised the North, with State Department officials saying this was how they “ought to behave.”

So South Korean officials are now lookingh at yet more drills to “send a strong massage” to North Korea, which is to say they are going to take a few more swings at the hornets nest and see if anything comes out this time.

It is certainly gratifying that the drill managed to not start a massive war that would kill tens or hundreds of thousands of people, but it must be concerning how many people seem to be taking that as a challenge to provoke the North even more. The aversion of war was certainly a sensible move by North Korea’s notoriously flakey government: how much more sensibility can be counted on?

Today the UN Security Council had an emergency meeting to try to do something about what both sides see as an inevitable resumption of hostilities Monday, and once again, on the back of US demands to ensure that all the blame was assigned to the North, failed to pass a resolution.

The US draft, supported by the NATO member nations, sought to “deplore” North Korea and condemn them and demand that they stand aside while South Korea conducts its latest “drill” in disputed waters. Russia and China sought a simpler bill encouraging both sides to avoid escalating tensions, prompting a condemnation from the US.

With both sides seemingly not only willing to go to war over this latest row but salivating at the prospect, there is surely ample blame to go around. South Korea’s decision to follow up a drill that led to an open exchange of shelling with an identical drill seems designed exclusively to placate the hawks demanding a new provocation, and North Korea’s rhetoric is so ridiculously harsh it can only ensure that South Korea could not possibly back down.

It seems clear that everybody loses in the resumption of a shooting war in the heavily armed peninsula, but it seems even the modest efforts that might have been taken to avoid this have fallen victim to the international community’s obsession with muddying up calls to avoid wars with assignments of blame that would be favorable to certain interested nations.

South Korea has promised to move ahead with the drill at some point in the next few hours, which is exactly the same as a previous drill which ended with both sides trading artillery fire along the disputed maritime border. North Korea has promised an even harsher reaction.

South Korean civilians, principally on Yeonbyeong but also on some other nearby islands, have been ordered to move into air raid bunkers in anticipation of the drill and what many believe will be the onset of war. It is unclear what, if any, measures are being taken among North Korea’s civilian populace in anticipation.

The clash and the inevitable casualties seems to be one both sides are extremely comfortable with, as South Korea has faced pro-war rallies in its capital, and responded with a drill that could only be seen as a provocation, while North Korea’s rhetoric in response to the new “drill” seems to be designed solely to ensure that the South couldn’t possibly back off it.