Is this a forecast of what we’ll be in for during a Kerry presidency? A headline in today’s Chicago Sun-Times reads: “U.N. Nuclear Chief Scolds Iran, N. Korea.” Well, that’s a start. The AP article continues, “In his annual report to the U.N. General Assembly, Mohamed ElBaradei said Iran should suspend its uranium enrichment program ‘as a confidence building measure’ and North Korea should dismantle its nuclear weapons program or at least allow inspections to ensure it is ‘exclusively peaceful.’” Problem is, Teheran has repeatedly expressed its unwillingness to give up its “right” to the fuel cycle; and as we know, even if both countries decided tomorrow to declare a halt to their nuclear activities and open themselves up to closer inspections, it wouldn’t be terribly hard for them to carry on clandestinely. Bush gets this, and gets that it will take a lot more than a few scolding words to tackle the problem. Kerry, on the other hand, has proposed giving the Iranians low-enriched uranium as a test of their intentions, and wants a Security Council referral only after more IAEA inspections. The Bush team wants a referral right away. In other words, if Bush wins, we’ll see not only a lot more scolding words, but probably a lot more actions to back them up. If Kerry wins, well, who knows? Maybe we’ll all finally learn for sure that Iran and North Korea aren’t merely looking to meet their domestic energy needs.