It's Official......Scary Times in Norkland, the World.

It has been reported in Seoul and Japan that North Korea is ready and committed to a 2nd nuclear test, possible as soon as this thursday. Why this thursday? As you may recall their last two firings have come on certain dates to try and punk the USA, the first one on July 4th, the second on Columbus Day and the day before South Korea announced it President to the UN council. It looks as though Kim Jong Il wants to upstage the visit by Condi Rice to South Korea later this week.

This from China Confidential is interesting, the US and Japan are playing with fire--nuclear fire--in their handling of the Korean crisis. Washington and Tokyo are making the mistake of treating North Korean tyrant Kim Jong-il like a cunning crime boss instead of what he really is--a crazed cult leader, who has constructed his own world within the confines of the Hermit Kingdom. For Dear Leader Kim, there is no reality except for the one he has fashioned over time. Exile and retirement--and reform--are out of the question. He is more likely to fight and die--and take hundreds of thousands or even millions of lives with him--than submit and surrender. Suffocating sanctions, as we have said, are a prescription for catastrophe. Barring a sudden Chinese-backed coup or arranged assassination, Kim will more likely lash out with ferocity--using the element of surprise to his great advantage--than return to stalled, multilateral nuclear disarmament talks.

For the US and Japan, the choices, as we see them, are (a) appeasement, assuming Kim can be satisfied with direct talks, recognition and security guarantees, economic assistance and a withdrawal of US troops, which are essentially nuclear hostages, anyhow, from South Korea, or (b) war, assuming the US is capable of using stealth bombers and missiles to accurately and utterly destroy every possible North Korean military, nuclear, chemical, and biological base and installation in a wave of sudden surprise attacks.

We do not believe that Kim is afraid of war; he has been preparing for it for years. The current Korean crisis is the unfinished business of the Korean War, which cost the lives of more than 52,000 Americans. If the Pentagon is incapable of defeating and destroying Kim without risking the lives of around 30,000 US troops and endangering our democratic ally, Japan, the world's second largest economy, Washington would be wise to cut a deal with him as soon as possible, even if it means abandoning South Korea and refocusing on dealing with Iran, a nuclear arming power with truly global aspirations. Pyongyang's territorial ambitions are limited to reunifying the Korean peninsula; in contrast, Tehran aims to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, dominate the Middle East and drive the US out of the strategically vital oil-producing region, and spread the mullahocracy's vision of radical Islam in order to change the power relations among nations for centuries to come.

Appeasing North Korea is a loathsome option worth considering; appeasing Iran is a non-starter, unless, as we have said, one is prepared to convert to fundamentalist Shiite Islam.


Horrible decisions need to made soon. Unfortunately the Clinton administration made the huge mistake of providing valuable nuclear technology to the North Koreans, now the Bush administration has the unenviable job of cleaning it up.