North Korea’s May 25 underground testing of a nuclear weapon in clear violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718 was a lot more than mere “bluster,” as some pundits portrayed it. A Russian Foreign Ministry official accurately described the calculated provocation as “dangerous brinkmanship” that poses a direct challenge to the U.N. and President Obama’s preconceived notions about international diplomacy.
After harshly criticizing his predecessor’s refusal to meet with Kim Jong Il and Iranian President Mahmoud Amadinejad, who also thumbs his nose at the U.S. and Europe as he pursues nuclear weapons, Obama now finds himself facing a potentially lethal crisis. North Korea and Iran appear to be daring the U.S. and the U.N. to stop them from achieving their nuclear ambitions. Two years ago, when Pyongyang was caught secretly helping Syria build a clandestine nuclear reactor, it was Israel – not the U.S. or the U.N. – that took the requisite military action to shut it down.
Years of diplomacy have not achieved the desired effect with North Korea. Kim Jong Il was rewarded for his defiance with foreign aid in exchange for a promise to disable the Soviet-era Yongbyon plutonium plant. But North Korea’s word has proved to be about as solid as the steam recently seen rising from the supposedly shuttered plant.
“Talk, declarations and soft sanctions do not stop rogue regimes from endangering world peace,” said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. “This [North Korean] test is a warning sign and a message to the world to wake up.” That sentiment was echoed by former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, one of the few who predicted North Korean’s nuclear testing: “There is no way the North Koreans are going to be talked out of their nuclear weapons.”
South Korea responded to the nuclear test and North Korea’s equally bellicose launch of five short-range missiles by joining the Proliferation Security Initiative, a network set up by the Bush administration to interdict shipments of weapons of mass destruction before they can be deployed. But after announcing it would no longer be bound by the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War, Pyongyang threatened South Korea with “unimaginable and merciless punishment” if it dares to block any suspect ships. This is where the U.N. and the Obama administration must draw the line before it’s too late.
