The five countries that have tried to bargain with North Korea over its nuclear program — China, South Korea, Russia, Japan and the United States — could have stopped the North Korean program and could reverse it still: Among them they have the capacity to force the collapse of the Kim Jong Il dictatorship. A similar coalition probably could stop Iran. But to do so, nuclear counterproliferation has to become those governments' highest priority. They have to be willing to make sacrifices and take risks.

As the diplomacy at the United Nations last week once again demonstrated, neither China nor Russia regard stopping the spread of nuclear weapons as essential. Both voted yesterday in support of a resolution imposing sanctions on North Korea, and talks will begin this week on a sanctions resolution aimed at Iran. But both Beijing and Moscow have worked to water down the measures, narrowing the list of sanctions and eliminating references to force. In doing so they have illuminated the priorities that for them matter more than limiting the spread of nuclear weapons.

China, though angry at North Korea, still finds it more important to preserve Mr. Kim's regime than to disarm it. Chinese officials reasonably worry about a destabilizing flood of refugees in the event the Kim dictatorship collapses. More cynically, they continue to see the regime as a means of containing U.S. influence in Asia. Beijing's view of Iran is similarly instrumental: It is a valuable source of energy and a check on the United States.

Under a blue sky pierced by a triumvirate of curved spires soaring more than 200 feet in the air, thousands of veterans and family members armed with well-traveled war stories came to an Arlington promontory and a Pentagon parking lot for the dedication and official unveiling of the U.S. Air Force Memorial. For the Air Force, which had been the only military branch not to have its own Washington memorial, the dedication completed nearly 15 years of effort to build a monument in the capital region to more than 54,000 airmen killed in action.

The dedication ceremony, which included speeches by President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, came nearly 60 years after the Air Force's creation as a separate service. Up by the memorial, hundreds of VIPs joined current and retired Air Force brass underneath the dizzying monument. They milled about its wide base, read inscriptions on adjacent granite walls, heard from dignitaries and watched the U.S. Air Force Band and Honor Guard perform.

Down by the Pentagon's parking lot, where the jutting spires could be seen in the distance, other former airmen and their relatives toured military aircraft and visited information booths. Mostly, they ambled around, sharing old stories filled with talk of B-29s or C-141s and reminiscing about the mundane tasks they just happened to perform on historic days.

Seaton Phelps, 84, from Edenton, N.C., sat in the parking lot in a back row seat, facing the distant memorial. He was part of the Air Force's predecessor, the Army Air Corps. He served in England during World War II.

"I helped prepare the planes for the paratroops on D-Day," he said. "We didn't know what was going to happen. We just helped get the planes ready — C-4 gliders and C-47s."

When asked what he thought of the memorial, he smiled. "I don't know how to express it," he said. "It's just nice."