AFP, the French news agency, is reporting that North Korea has threatened to immolate Japan in a nuclear holocaust, should the United States take military action against it. The paranoid dictator Kim Jong—il probably does believe that the United States is planning a sneak attack to remove him, the Number One Enemy (in his own mind).

To be sure, there will be a portion of the Japanese public which will cry and moan that American bases must be removed, because they endanger the peaceful Japanese, pledged never to go to war. Decades ago, such cries would have found a degree of popular support.

But the Japanese public has awakened. The confirmation that innocent Japanese children were kidnapped from Japan Sea beaches and taken to Pyongyang to become language teachers and agents of the dictatorship has hardened attitudes toward the most evil regime in the world.

Public support for Japanese nuclear arms is likely to increase. Just over North Korea's border with China, the Communist mandarins must be displeased. Very displeased. That annoying little bloodthirsty tyrant is wrecking their longer term plans, and exposing China to a much greater threat from Japan.

Maybe there will be some movement toward solving the problem of Lil' Kim.

Thomas Lifson  9 24 04