While hundreds of thousands of ordinary people were starving to death in North Korea, Kim Jong Il invested in nukes, not food.  If that doesn't tell you the character of the Kim regime, nothing will.

It's expensive and difficult to develop nuclear weapons. Iran is reportedly having trouble with its uranium refinement at Natanz. However,  Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard officers were seen observing Kim's recent multiple missile launch, including a botched ICBM launch aimed at Hawaii.  It makes sense that the Iranians and North Koreans have been working together on missiles and nuclear weapons. 

If so, Tehran's technical problems with enrichment may be solved very soon. Tehran has the oil money and the NoKos have the technology. Together, they are surely speeding things up. They are in a hurry, and the faster they move, the sooner they will have an unbeatable weapon.

Last year a leaked National Intelligence Estimate estimated that Tehran will  have nukes in ten years. Israel has been more realistic, putting it at 2007—2009, with a point of no return coming in less than a year. In fact, Iran may already have smuggled enough enriched uranium from North Korea. It may already have enough material for one or two bombs. If that is the case, even an embargo on North Korean trade will not stop the sharing of technology with the fanatics of Tehran. You can teach engineering techniques over the internet. Drug routes can be used to smuggle experts, uranium, and detailed designs. We know that Kim has contacts in the Asian underworld for his forged dollars and other criminal enterprises.

Technology spreads exponentially. Today we have one confirmed rogue state with a dictator mad enough to starve vast numbers of his people to get his personal ego nukes. Before long we will have two, Kim and Ahmadinejad. Can Venezuela's Hugo Chavez be far behind?

The United States has been mercilessly attacked for knocking over Saddam. That massive propaganda attack, led by the Democrats and the international Left, now makes it much harder to deal with Kim, Ahmadinejad, Chavez, and maybe the Columbia drug cartel?  As usual the Left proclaims its higher morality and ends up making things much worse.

As long as civilized nations fail to present a unified front, we can only rely on the personal courage and moral clarity of leaders like George W. Bush and Tony Blair. But we cannot be sure that we will always be led by men and women of their caliber: Blair is leaving office within a year, and Bush in two years.

The future of the world therefore hangs by a thread. Where are the adults?

James Lewis   10 10 06