N. Korea and Iran: The terrorist threat that lies ahead

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See the Sol Sanders Archive By Sol Sanders SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

One of those mysterious North Korean explosions and the intractability of Iran dramatize, if more evidence were needed, just how dangerous the world [again!] has become in the post-Soviet era. The events of 9/11 only served to focus the nature of that new jungle out there. Grappling with it is as complex as only a worldwide phenomenon could be. But the threats posed by North Korea and Iran do segment and dramatize it.

PyongyangÕs explanation of a Òplanned hydroelectric construction explosionÓ is not only ridiculous, but further evidence of the rickety nature of the regime. Big ÒeventsÓ are always trumpeted as obeisance to The Dear Leader. Certainly not a hydroelectric project in an area notorious for its aridity but known to have underground weapons installations. It does demonstrate the dichotomy of Communist regimes ø relatively efficient weapons production accompanied by starvation, in living memory in a ÒrevisionistÓ China and continuing today in ultra-Stalinist North Korea. [Note even the less than prosperous post-USSR Russia and Ukraine are grain exporters; the extent of the perennially failing Soviet crop used to be a measurement hotly debated among the Kremlinologists.]

TehranÕs conflicting statements and the International Atomic Energy AgencyÕs equivocation about its snooping is only matched by the wishful thinking [again!] among the USÕ allies in Western Europe ø now Britain as well as Germany, and, of course, France. They are holding out for diplomacy [appeasement?] to halt what has to be the mullahsÕhellbent effort at producing nuclear weapons. There is no logic, as they maintain, in an impoverished society with some of the worldÕs largest petroleum reserves seeking Òa full nuclear fuel cycleÓ for electricityø even for obscurantist Islamicists drowning in their 7th Century tribalism.

It is no accident, as the Communists used to say, joint development of missiles ø and perhaps nuclear technology ø bind the two pariah states. They have not only abetted each other. But their external support for diverse but equally deadly terror organizations notoriously continues. North Korea has graduated from aiding student revolutionaries in Mexico City, airport massacres in Israel, public assassination in Burma, and kidnapping in Japan, to peddling high tech weapons for its survival.

The Iranian mullahs are still in the same old business: arming terrorists working out of Syria [again!], to Iraq, Lebanon, and Pakistan. But their ambitions are now grander. With nuclear arms, a large population base, nascent industrialization, and a strategic position, they see themselves as the dominant Mideast power. These dreams are not new. But in the ShahÕs time [with the exception of a little problem of OPEC and higher oil prices for the US and the West] nostalgia for past Persian glory was within the bounds of a U.S. alliance -- and a modernization toward more universal values.

ItÕs there all the efforts for compromise founder. Compromise is the product of diplomacy ø and a shared reasoning. But in neither instance is there much hope of that.

Its proponents argue were the U.S. to negotiate on a one-on-one basis with Pyongyang, it would produce disarmament agreement which would remove the threat of a nuclear clad North Korea, and, worse, its selling such weapons, possibly even non-state terrorists like Al Qaida. Yet that logic dictates North Korea would have to transform itself, at least as far as Communist China has, into a more viable society with access to and dependence on foreign investment, trade and technology transfers. There is no evidence North KoreaÕs leadership does not see such developments as the regimeÕs death warrant. It seeks nuclear weapons to maintain the dictatorship of a military elite. The Bush AdministrationÕs strategy, limping perhaps through the untrustworthiness of its allies [again!], is to seek the help of North KoreaÕs neighbors. They all have an interest in a North Korea without nuclear weapons, at least in theory. The threat of an economic blockade is the alternative to a compromise which would include economic aid for the regime. The problem is our allies ø South Korea, and to some extent, Japan ø are unwilling to consider applying those sanctions. China, the principle player, while mouthing platitudes, continues to be the main prop of the regime. MoscowÕs Putin, ever ambivalent, blames U.S. rhetoric for the impasse.

The mullahs present an even more horrendous predicament. They see themselves as instruments of a higher power for world domination, justifying all prevarication and obfuscation with infidels. At their furtherest reaches, they pursue a fanaticism in which their followersÕ death is only the entrance to paradise. But the Europeans base their hopes for the kind of change which came in Central and Eastern Europe under the Communists on a policy of ÒengagementÓ with these same mullahs. Meanwhile, the threatening clock ticks louder, not only for IranÕs Mideast neighbors, but for Europe as the range of their missiles lengthens.

Iraq, with all its problems, is only the opening act of the drama now ahead of us.