The news that North Korea has just exploded another nuclear device is a heavy slap in the face for President Obama. The explosion was underground, but as big as Hiroshima. Obama pleads for a world free from nuclear weapons, and holds out the prospect of diminishing the stock held by the United States. He proposes more of the six-nation negotiations on the issue begun under President Bush but which got nowhere, indeed strengthened the hand of North Korea. That state is a tin-pot dictatorship held together by fear and oppression, but instead of collapsing as it ought to, it has become a serious menace.
We know that North Korea was in the process of building the nuclear weapons’ facility in Syria that Israel bombed and destroyed — it therefore has an active foreign policy on behalf of what used to be called the axis of evil. North Korea is intimately connected with the Iranian nuclear weapon now thought to be in the final stages of production. This April, North Korea launched a long-range missile that flew over the Pacific. And maybe things are coming together. Holding out that famous open hand of his, President Obama expects to negotiate Iran into desisting with its nuclear development. The only realistic alternative is a military strike by the United States or Israel, or both. But in that event, North Korea might freeze the situation by brandishing its nuclear weapon on behalf of Iran.
Time is running out. The more sincere Obama is, the more naïve he seems.