There are a lot of lessons to be gained from paying close attention to North Korea and its nuclear program.

First, and perhaps least obvious, is how the Clintonistas persist in their unabashed efforts to rewrite history so that fact becomes fiction and fiction fact.  Clinton's deal with North Korea aided and abetted the rogue nation in developing nuclear weapons and delivery systems while receiving money and other incentives from the West.  He was hoodwinked, pure and simple, and that is why we find ourselves in the position we are in today.  It is one thing not to learn from our mistakes, but quite another to fabricate a counter story that more conveniently fits one's political leanings, even at the risk of harming national security.  But such is the state of the Democrats.

Second, North Korea is the perfect metaphor for what is occurring right now in Iran.  Diplomacy is routinely rebuffed by the Iranians as they stall for time, all the while going full steam ahead in developing and fielding their own nuclear weapons, which they have promised to use on Israel.  The West fails to recognize that endless diplomacy is but thinly disguised appeasement, and that diplomacy without the credible (and I mean CREDIBLE) backstop of military force is worse than useless.  It is self-defeating.  Under no circumstances can Iran be permitted to develop nuclear weapons capability.  Such would leave the world a much more dangerous place, with the United States and Israel the prime targets of Iranian aggression (either directly or indirectly, through terrorist proxies) and the Middle East a cauldron of Islamic radicalism, with no good options for the West to pursue.

North Korea must not be permitted to go one step further in its development and fielding of nuclear weapons.  That country already is exporting arms and delivery systems as virtually its only source of cash.  Iranian and Syrian scientists are in direct touch with their counterparts in North Korea and reports are that they have even observed the North Korean tests.  The only way to stop North Korea is with force and that becomes extremely problematic with South Korea and Japan just a short missile lob away.  China, North Korea's neighbor to the north, makes an armed response even more complicated.  But stop them we must.  That the situation is so difficult today should serve as a blatantly obvious reminder of why we cannot afford to allow Iran to press forward even one more step.

While North Korea may have a handful of nuclear devices, its program is still in its infancy, and the United States possesses a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons that could render North Korea (or Iran, for that matter) a wasteland of radioactive slag.  That should be our ace in the hole for dealing with these dangerous regimes.  It would also send a message to other would be terrorist nations and nuclear aspirants that they had better not tread down the same path.

Sure, we can go with sanctions first, but North Korea is such a basket case that its people are already starving and the government still doesn't care, so how likely are sanctions to have any effect?  As for Iran, they can hurt us as bad or worse than we can hurt them, by interrupting global oil supplies and stepping up the insurgency that is already killing American troops in Iraq.  As long as both countries are allowed to do as they please without consequences, they will not only continue with their nuclear programs, but will be emboldened.

The West is increasingly decadent and impotent, with no one to blame but itself.  If we are to survive, we must understand that you don't compromise with or negotiate with evil.  Evil is evil, in all that it implies, meaning that any pledges made are simply lies designed to gain further advantage.  As we should have learned from Hitler, Stalin, Tojo and Pol Pot, evil must in all cases be confronted and destroyed.

Contributed by Shane Briscoe on October 10, 2006 at 08:43 AM in Shane Briscoe | Permalink

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