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January 05, 2003

Kimchi For The Soul -

Kimchi For The Soul - James Robbins on the current North Korea crisis in National Review Online.

It's been comical, watching the left smell blood regarding the President's approach to terrorism, again and again and again, since September 11. Remember all the approaches? We've been through:

  1. "Homeland Defense means defending the homeland - not going overseas!
  2. "Afghanistan will be a quagmire!"
  3. "Er, we only captured the major cities!"
  4. "But we don't have Bin Laden Yet!"
  5. "But what about Iran?"
  6. "Er...what about North Korea?"
This, like the others, doesn't stand up. Robbins:
Meanwhile the crisis has given the president's critics something new to carp on. Last month's "Bin Laden before Iraq" line has now given way to "Korea First." When you put Iraq and North Korea side by the side, the case can be superficially compelling. After all, U.N. inspectors are searching in vain for Iraqi WMDs, and the DPRK practically admits having them. Iraq has no functioning breeder reactors, North Korea is firing theirs up. Iraq has admitted and cooperated with international inspectors, the DPRK gave them the boot. Saddam has a repressive Arab Socialist regime, Kim runs a nightmarish Stalinist totalitarian system. Iraq has a relatively weak army in poor morale; North Korea has 10 million fanatics under arms, the largest standing land army in the world. Iraq is restricted by no-fly zones, Korea is not. Saddam has gassed thousands of Iraqis at various points in his rule; Kim is starving millions every year to have the resources he needs to support his war machine. (Note: If millions are dying, where are the bodies? Can we get satellite images of mass graves? Are they being burned in crematoria? There's an image.) North Korea is bad news, no question about it. All other things being equal, it should be getting more attention. But all things are not equal. The Middle East is much more important to U.S. national interests than the Korean peninsula, primarily because it is the source of much of the world's energy supplies. It is also a region that has lately shown a propensity to export its extremism to undermine U.S. allies and attack the homeland. North Korean exports, more tangible things like missile technology, can be more easily interdicted. Furthermore, the Iraq issue has been developing for a year (or a dozen). The Allies cannot turn on a dime and deal with North Korea exclusively, then expect to be able to go back to pick up where they left off with Saddam.

A critical inequality is the military equation. North Korea would be a much tougher adversary than Iraq even if it only had conventional forces. The probable presence of nuclear weapons make the situation even more difficult. Unfortunately, deterrence works in this situation as in any other match-up between nuclear states. Concerted action on the part of the United States without the certainty that North Korean nuclear weapons could be destroyed or neutralized severely alters the risk calculus. Thus the critics who say we should go after North Korea because it is strong have it completely backwards — we should deal with Saddam first because for the moment he is weak. We have been preparing for that conflict. Get it done while we can.

When you live in the world of theory - as so many of the left's wonks and punditry do - it all seems so easy.

Posted by Mitch at January 5, 2003 02:56 PM
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