Why Iran and North Korea Are Different
U.S. policy in the last couple of presidential eras has demonstrated complete acceptance of North Korea’s megalomaniacal leadership attaining nuclear weapons. In 2003 though, make-believe weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq were enough of a threat to start an illegal war that killed hundreds of thousands of people, cost unfathomable amounts of money, and is still wreaking havoc on Americans, Iraqis, and the region. And now again, a nuclear program in Iran that everybody agrees has no military component is worth the world’s most crippling sanctions, provocative militarism, and outright calls for preemptive war.
Without endorsing the whole thing, Micah Zenko at CFR:
As it turned out, the existence of several North Korean nuclear weapons were both tolerable and acceptable to the Bush administration. The collective weight of the Six Party Talks, economic sanctions, and positive incentives in the form of fuel oil or security guarantees failed to convince the North Korean regime to abandon their nuclear program and accept intrusive verification. As Arthur Brown, CIA East Asian division chief during the first term of the Bush administration, asked pointedly: “If you were Kim [Jong-il], would you give up the only thing that has protected your regime from collapse?”
Although former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld placed two dozen B-52 bombers and B-1 bombers on high alert to deter “opportunism,” the Bush administration never seriously considered a preemptive attack on North Korean nuclear facilities for a number of reasons: the military was busy with regime change in Iraq; South Korean citizens would have borne the brunt of retaliatory artillery and rocket attacks; and there were no guarantees that airstrikes would effectively destroy the plutonium or any assembled nuclear warheads. As a Bush administration official readily acknowledged in December 2002: “I’m not saying we don’t have military options. I’m just saying we don’t have good ones.”
There are of course two things that make Washington ambivalent towards the nukes of the psychotic authoritarian North Korean government and at the same time preemptively outraged and bombastic towards the civilian nuclear programs of Iraq and Iran: Israel and oil.
Bob
January 23rd, 2012 at 11:43 am
The difference is simple:
North Korea actually has nukes – hence, the MIC is afraid of war with North Korea.
Iran does not actually have WMDs, and like with Iraq, that makes them appear weak to the MIC.
Also, screening comments before they are visible to the public is censorship.
liveload
January 23rd, 2012 at 11:52 am
Nukes are a challenge to the war machine, nothing more. Look at Pakistan, are their nukes doing them any good? The country is overrun by NGO's and intelligence apparatchik. The problem Leviathan has with North Korea is access and Isolation.
dim mak
January 24th, 2012 at 7:35 am
correct. all nuclear weapons are for pakistan are a target for the imperialists, nothing more.
north koreas biggest advantage over its would-be colonizers is its isolation and inaccessibility
Lady Gaga
January 24th, 2012 at 8:11 am
Just testing to see if they're actually screening, I've never noticed AW screening comments before.
Lady Gaga
January 24th, 2012 at 8:12 am
My comment went straight through, definetely no screening going on.
gualtiero
January 24th, 2012 at 8:22 am
North Korean nukes do not put a stranglehold on World Oil Supplies. They do not undermine the security of Saudi Arabia or Israel. They do not threaten the U.S. Economy or Stock Market. Nor do Chinese or Russian nukes. Iranian nukes do all of the foregoing. North Korea has nukes to maintain their isolation and to extract financial concessions from China, Japan and the U.S. Iran is building nukes to shield them from their goal of toppling all the Sunni-ruled nations where Shias have majority populations. Israek is not Iran's target: Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Shiekdoms are. Focusing attention on the "mortal" risks to Israel helps galvanize U.S. public opinion, but it's really a side-show.
Guest
January 24th, 2012 at 1:23 pm
The proper response is Screw Israel. The Apartheid state can have a nuke free Middle East or keep its weapons and expect others to get them also. It is just a matter of time.
And the main impetus to proliferation is in fact the huge military machine of the US. The only protection against it is nukes.
The US is the main source of nuke proliferation.
R.Parker
January 24th, 2012 at 10:11 pm
The only country to have actually used nuclear weapons is the USA.
old kanchil
January 25th, 2012 at 6:19 am
N.Korea is the world's most embrgoed nation. What do you expect their leadership to do? Develop nuclear weapons so that the rest of the world will sit up and do something. And it also prevents the US/Nato from attacking it. Libya and Iraq paid the price for being nice guys.
Ian
January 25th, 2012 at 11:15 am
Thanks for explaining why the US and it's sycophants are trying to choke the life out of Iran.
Best commentary I have seen in a while.
Jeff
January 26th, 2012 at 1:09 am
Funny how you talk about nice guys – by that I am guessing you mean brutial dictators. But I am guessing they are not nearly as bad as the US and Israel, the real satans in teh world.
Jeff
January 26th, 2012 at 1:15 am
I know what you mean. The mideast would be such a peaceful region if not for Israel. I mean arab dictators to ruthless brutilize their people, persecute women, minorities, gays…. Give no human rights to their people, who can live or die at a whim, this is Israel, how did you put it, the Aparteid states faul. I mean none Muslilums are not allowed in Mecca and Coptic Christians are brutalized in Egypt, Palestinans are discriminated and persucuted in Jordan, lebnon and Syria,
But Israel, the JEWISH country, the only country where Arab citizens have full human rights in the whole mideast they are the, how did you put it again, aparteid state….
I suggest you stop watch Arab controlled TV stations and look to teh reality on teh ground. Teh only people to give the Arabs of Palestine any self governence is Israel, not Jordan and Egypt who simply annexed teh land and made it thier own… wake up dude!
stats
January 26th, 2012 at 4:29 pm
Israel and the United States have killed far more people over the last 10 years than any of the tin-pot dictators in the Middle East.
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