The United Nations responded today to North Korea’s threats to launch pre-emptive nuclear strikes on both the United States and South Korea with a new round of even harsher sanctions on Pyongyang. But it is not likely that these latest measures will have much impact on an already isolated communist regime that has no compunction about starving or imprisoning as many of its own people as it deems necessary. Their nuclear threats may turn out to be empty bluster, but whether they intend to further destabilize the region or not there is little the U.S. or the U.N. can do about it.
One shouldn’t minimize the danger that a nuclear North Korea poses to the shaky peace that has held for nearly 60 years along the 38th parallel as well as to the rest of the Far East. There is no telling what this maniacal government will do, and the expectation in some quarters that the accession of Kim Jong-un to power after the death of his father would calm things down has proven to be mistaken. Kim’s latest gambit seems aimed at testing South Korea’s new leader Park Geunhye, and there is always ground for concern that the North’s provocations could set in motion a train of events with unforeseen consequences.
But there is a lesson here that goes beyond our justified concerns about the Korean peninsula. North Korea can defy the world with impunity because it flouted every diplomatic agreement it signed about its nuclear program and wound up with a bomb that forever changed the strategic equation between it and the U.S. The progress of Pyongyang’s Iranian ally toward the same goal and the willingness of the West to engage in exactly the same sort of diplomatic minuet puts the world’s current dilemma in Korea in a sobering light.
Like the Iranians are doing now, North Korea also engaged in a diplomatic process prior to their going nuclear. Several times they agreed to only use their nuclear plant for peaceful purposes and in exchange for those promises were rewarded by the West. But they reneged on every promise and were eventually able to announce the achievement of their nuclear goal, leaving the U.S. with no plausible method for rectifying the situation. All Washington can do about it now is to help pass U.N. resolutions that don’t impress the North Koreans. Meanwhile, South Koreans and others in the region are left to wonder whether Kim will ever make good on his threats.
The diplomatic situation with Iran is just as bleak as the one that was previously conducted with the North Koreans. The Iranians know they have time on their side, and though their economy is much larger and more dependant on foreign trade, they, too, have discovered that it can survive even a program of tough sanctions imposed from abroad. And if the Obama administration ever does make good on its promise to stop the ayatollahs from gaining nuclear capability, the Iranians also know theirs is a bigger country that would provide a difficult military challenge to any nation that sought to take out their nuclear facilities.
The North Koreans did have one advantage that the Iranians do not possess. The 1953 cease-fire that ended the Korean War and the heavily armed standoff along the borders between the two Koreas may have made any resort to force to stop the North from going nuclear difficult if not impossible. But there is no such predicament to stop the U.S. from a strike on Iran as a last resort to prevent it from going nuclear.
What President Obama needs to be thinking about today as he ponders the implication of Kim’s threats is just how much more dangerous the world would be if North Korea’s ally Iran also had the bomb. It may be that the help North Korea is selling the Iranians may render timetables about Tehran’s progress moot. But whether or not that is true, the West must understand that its current dilemma is a product of the feckless nuclear diplomacy it conducted with Pyongyang under the Clinton and Bush administrations.
More time wasted with dead end diplomacy that only serves Iran’s purposes only gets the world that much closer to the day when there will be two nuclear rogue regimes rather than just one. The longer a decision about using force against Iran is put off, the more likely it will be that North Korea won’t be the only nation making nuclear threats against the U.S. in the not so distant future.
It's not just the United States that needs to be worried. What about Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt? Those countries, and others within striking range of Iran are also worried. We are starting to hear rumors of Japan wanting nuclear weapons. And why not? North Korea is a direct threat to them, too. How long before South Korea seeks to go nuclear? And let's not forget that China, as reported recently, may have a much larger nuclear arsenal then heretofore believed. n nThe fear here is well-placed and evident. The more rogue states that are nuclear, the more states that would never consider nuclear weapons are pushed to develop them. It would be irresponsible, as a nation, for Japan,say, to declare that it would never develop nuclear weapons. Likewise, Saudi Arabia would need to go nuclear just to keep pace with their mad dog neighbor Iran. n nHence, the problem is not just that one country or another possesses nuclear weapons. It's deeper, more profound, and therefore harder to limit. There is a real sense of induced proliferation that neighboring countries must themselves be nuclear powers if only to counter-balance their irrational neighbors. And who can blame them? As the U.S. seeks to draw down our nuclear stockpile, can anyone rightly claim that we will be better placed to deter those nations who have no compunction about nuclear armed missiles? n nThe threat from a nuclear Iran, as from a nuclear North Korea, is deeper than each country alone. Once one realizes that, the imperative for deterrence and for ridding the world of nuclear mad dogs is all the more apparent.
The answer is simple: preemptively nuclear bomb N. Korea – to rubble in their military capability. If Truman wasn't such an assh-le incompetent and allowed MacArthur to finish off N. Korea, we would have no problem with them now. Maybe, then, Iran would get the message. But it won't happen. We'll wait until the last second, or later, and maybe, just maybe, survive. Just remember, previous survivals do not predict success again.
I imagine that North Korea was not bombed preemptively because the North Koreans could then destroy Seoul with conventional weapons and we'd be fighting a ground war in Asia. n nOf course, unless I just missed it, the "pro-Israel community" did not call for bombing North Korea to prevent her from getting nukes. It's just Iran. If that difference has an explanation as part of a US strategic calculus, I don't know what it is.
While I understand the argument and I do think that there is some validity, I'm MUCH more concerned at the moment, about the statements coming from the DPRK regarding cancelling the Armistice Agreement. nThe DPRK has a very large standing army along with tanks and artillery close enough to major population centers in the south so as to wreak havoc upon the people of S. Korea. They don't NEED nukes to inflict major devastation on the south. The DPRK has roughly 6,515,279 soldiers (2010 est.) ready to rock and roll vs. some 28,500 U.S. plus the S. Koreans soldiers. Every scenario I've seen shows the DPRK being able to breach the demarcation line at will. Even if the latest round of escalating rhetoric doesn't lead to an all out war on the Korean peninsula, the DPRK could cause serious disruption and damage using artillery alone… The situation IS in fact getting tense there, judging by the heightened level of bellicose statements I've read coming from the KCNA and while they 'bluster' about nukes, I don't think it has anything to do with nukes at this point. The DPRK is using the threat of nuclear weapons as a means to scare their own people into action as well as trying to put a scare into the west in general.