North Korea Admits to Nukes, Iran Won’t Give Up Trying

Two-thirds of the “axis of evil” have made it known that they are going to rely on nuclear weapons for their protection. In the bad old days of the Cold War, Moscow and Washington held the populations of the US and USSR hostage through the guarantee of “Mutually Assured Destruction,” meaning any attack would result in a nuclear exchange that would wipe both off the map (and probably take all the human race with it). Any poker player knows that bluffs can work, and for 50 years, the MAD deterrence kept The Bomb from going off. The regimes of North Korea and Iran this week made it clear that they will rely on the same principle to stay in power.

North Korea has walked out of the six-nation talks aimed at diffusing its nuclear threat saying it will "bolster its nuclear weapons arsenal." The same statement added that Pyongyang’s nukes were "for self-defense to cope with the Bush administration's evermore undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the sarcastic name of North Korea for itself]. The US disclosed its attempt to topple the political system in the DPRK at any cost, threatening it with a nuclear stick. This compels us to take a measure to bolster its nuclear weapons arsenal in order to protect the ideology, system, freedom and democracy chosen by the people in the DPRK.” The reference about “nuclear stick” is to Contingency Plan 5027, which is rather old news, under which the US plans to use 25 fission devices against the North in the event of an attack on the Seoul regime.

Meanwhile, in Tehran, President Mohammad Khatami announced on Wednesday, “Neither my government, nor any other [Iranian] government can give a convincing reply to people [who seek our] giving up peaceful nuclear technology. Iran has achieved nuclear technology without the help of others, and it will never give up its right [to use it] under illegitimate pressure from others.” In short, he’s telling the European Union to take its trade deal and go home. Still, peaceful nuclear energy for a nation floating on a sea of oil is plain deception.

The lessons of Hiroshima and Baghdad are clear for all to see, and while the regimes in Pyongyang and Tehran may be odious, they are not stupid. The Japanese were at war with the US, and didn’t have their own bomb – so Hiroshima. The Saddamite government miscalculated in thinking the threat of weapons of mass destruction alone would keep the Americans out – the ability to hurt America with those weapons didn't exist anymore than the weapons themselves. Just how was a hypothetical nuke from Saddamite Iraq going to get to a US target? An attack on Saudi Arabia wouldn’t bother anybody in the US, and one on Israel would only make the war hysteria greater. Neither would deter.

But Iran has 135,000 US troops in next door Iraq it can target with its missiles, and North Korea has the ability to hit 38,000 US troops stationed in South Korea with artillery and missiles, and more in Japan. Targeting those troops will deter Mr. Bush, and Mr. Kim and Mr. Khatami both know it. This takes away the military option from the US, and it will force Washington to negotiate any future conflicts. Of course, this is a problem for an administration that believes security is best measured by the inability of other nations to inflict harm rather than by their desire not to inflict harm. Britain has nuclear weapons, and Mr. Bush doesn’t care because Tony Blair has no desire to use them on Des Moines and Omaha.

So what is a neo-con administration with fewer than four years to change the course of history to do? Better focus on Social Security changes because containment can work, but it takes time. And a back channel message should go to both Iran and North Korea, “You will be held responsible for any attack on the US or its allies by terrorists who use nuclear weapons.” Deterrence works both ways.

© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.

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