Axis Powers

Con Coughlin reports in today's Telegraph that European defense officials are saying that North Korea and Iran are cooperating to perform an Iranian nuclear test. Possibly as soon as this year. Is Europe going to rouse itself and realize Iran is a growing menace?

North Korea is helping Iran to prepare an underground nuclear test similar to the one Pyongyang carried out last year.

Under the terms of a new understanding between the two countries, the North Koreans have agreed to share all the data and information they received from their successful test last October with Teheran's nuclear scientists.

North Korea provoked an international outcry when it successfully fired a bomb at a secret underground location and Western intelligence officials are convinced that Iran is working on its own weapons programme.

A senior European defence official told The Daily Telegraph that North Korea had invited a team of Iranian nuclear scientists to study the results of last October's underground test to assist Teheran's preparations to conduct its own — possibly by the end of this year.

There were unconfirmed reports at the time of the Korean firing that an Iranian team was present. Iranian military advisers regularly visit North Korea to participate in missile tests.

Now the long-standing military co-operation between the countries has been extended to nuclear issues.

According to the report, Iran is forging ahead following the complete lack of any meaningful sanctions on North Korea following its test last year. The only way to stop this is for the West to stand together and back Iran down. The Gulf states have a huge problem coming their way.

Frozen Silence

The village of Koogang in North Korea is very quiet these days. According to Chinese embassy officials it's quiet in a number of Northern villages this year. Because everyone in the village, man, woman or child froze to death this winter. While Kim Jong Il's favored people live in luxury.

The men who finally made it into the remote highland village of Koogang were greeted by an eerie silence and a gruesome sight.

Lying among the simple wooden huts and burnt remnants of wooden furniture, they found the bodies of 46 North Korean villagers, including women and children, all of whom had frozen to death. Cut off from the outside world by one of the harshest winters in many years, the villagers had suffered a macabre fate that has exposed both the desperate poverty and callous misrule blighting the Stalinist state.

More than 300 people are thought to have perished from cold so far this winter in North Korea's mountainous north, victims of temperatures as low as -30C and of an arrogant ruling clique.

"Nobody got out of the trap alive," said an official at the Chinese embassy in the capital, Pyongyang, who confirmed the events of Koogang. "After heavy snowfalls, there was a severe frost. The inhabitants were doomed."

In a country notorious for its secretiveness, the regime of President Kim Jong-il has made no mention of the deaths. As the rest of the population struggle to stay warm, 50,000 members of his ruling elite continue to live in splendid isolation in a compound in central Pyongyang – enjoying the benefits of hot water, central heating and satellite television.

The United Nations Development Program appears to have helped fund the luxury of the North Korean elite while doing nothing whatsoever for the people of Koogang. Note that extremely vocal critic of the US, Mark Malloch Brown, a close friend of George Soros by all reports, was the person in charge of that UN department for most of that time.

The new head of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon, has ordered an emergency external review of all UN expenditure after claims that up to $100 million meant for development aid was channelled into the hands of North Korean officials.

The allegation, made by US officials, prompted fears that the money from the agency may have helped fund Pyongyang's secret nuclear bomb programme. Mr Ban's rapid response to the US claim is a sign that he wants to avoid being dragged down by the sort of UN scandals that dogged his predecessor as secretary general, Kofi Annan. The organisation's former chief was widely criticised for his handling of the Iraqi oil-for-food affair, under which Saddam Hussein skimmed off an estimated $10 billion from the UN programme.

In the latest "dollars-for-dictators" controversy to embroil the UN, officials at its Development Programme (UNDP) acknowledged that since 1998 it had employed North Korean staff, hand-picked by the Stalinist regime of Kim Jong-il, and paid their salaries and other expenses in hard currency into a fund controlled by Pyongyang.

The UNDP, headed by Sir Mark Malloch Brown, a Briton, for much of that period, relied on audits conducted by the North Korean government to track the use of funds to help the desperately poor population of a country where millions have died from famine in recent years.

The legacy of the Kofi Annan years in the UN will continue to be felt for years to come. The UN, instead of helping the people of North Korea, enabled the monster who rules there to live in luxury while people starved and froze to death.

Turning Over Rocks

Still more things emerging from under freshly turned rocks at the United Nations. Fox News is reporting that the US State Department has sent a formal complaint to the UN alleging serious misconduct in the United Nations Development Program operations in North Korea since at least 1998. The complaint is based on the UN's own audits which appear to have found serious violations of UN regulations.

Moreover, the period of scandal and secrecy in the UNDP’s North Korean operations coincided in large measure with the tenure of Mark Malloch Brown, most recently Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations itself, as administrator of the UNDP.

Malloch Brown took over the UNDP in July 1999, and stayed in his post even after August 2005, when he also became chief of staff for then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who at the time was reeling under the effects of the Oil for Food scandal.

In March 2006, Malloch Brown took over as Deputy Secretary General from Louise Frechette, who suddenly left the U.N. ahead of schedule, after her own role in Oil for Food became widely known and criticized. Only then did Malloch Brown give up his UNDP fiefdom.

Malloch Brown left the U.N. along with Annan at the end of last year and has since been harshly critical of the Bush Administration and its former ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, for their demands for greater U.N. transparency and reform.

From at least 1999 to at least 2004, it appears the UNDP, and the U.N. itself, had no idea what Kim Jong Il did with the aid agency’s money, ostensibly intended for aid programs ranging from development of energy programs and small and medium sized businesses, and for environmental protection.

But the UNDP had plenty of warnings from auditors it had contracted to look at the program during that period, and who signaled loudly that something was badly awry.

In a letter sent to the UNDP on Jan. 16, Mark Wallace, the U.S. State Department ambassador at the U.N. for management and reform, wrote that the auditors’ testimony shows it is “impossible” for the U.N. aid agency to verify whether its funds “have actually been used for bona fide development purposes or if the DPRK [North Korea] has converted such funds for its own illicit purposes.”

Since this news report came out, Congressional Republicans have begun calling for an end to programs in North Korea and Ban Ki-Moon has called for an urgent outside inquiry into all of the development programs. I think Ban is showing some real promise as Secretary General. One wonders if certain former officials will be moving to Cyprus soon.

Christmas Odds and Ends

Hopefully, everyone is having a wonderful Christmas day. Obviously, I have not been posting very much today, it is a day for family, after all. But I have a few minutes while the turkey is in the oven and I am, after all, a news junkie. So briefly, here are a few things that caught my eye today.

Kim Jong Il is out of his tiny little mind and the world media cooperates:

SEOUL (AFP) – A mysterious halo appeared in the sky over North Korea just before its leader Kim Jong-Il marked an important anniversary, the communist state's official media reported.

The "unprecedentedly great halo" appeared over the city of Kusong on December 23 during a day of cloud and gentle hail, the Korean Central News Agency reported Monday.

"The big ring around the sun stayed for 30 minutes, throwing bright rays of seven colours. And when it disappeared, the hail stopped and not a speck of cloud was seen," the agency said.

"It occurred the day before the 15th anniversary of leader Kim Jong-Il's assumption of the supreme commandership of the Korean People's Army and the birth anniversary of anti-Japanese war hero Kim Jong-Suk."

AFP is right there to report this as straight news instead of the delusional propaganda of a tyrant.

The Godfather of Soul, James Brown, is dead at the age of 73.

The pompadoured dynamo whose classic singles include "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag" and "I Got You (I Feel Good)" died Monday of heart failure, said his agent, Frank Copsidas of Intrigue Music.

"People already know his history, but I would like for them to know he was a man who preached love from the stage," said friend Charles Bobbit, who was with Brown at the hospital. "His thing was 'I never saw a person that I didn't love.' He was a true humanitarian who loved his country."

The entertainer with the rough-edged voice and flashy footwork also had diabetes and prostate cancer that was in remission, Bobbit said. Brown initially seemed fine at the hospital, Copsidas said. Three days before his death, he had participated in his annual toy giveaway in Augusta, and he was looking forward to his New Year's Eve show.

Regardless of whether you were a fan of Brown or not, if you ever had the chance to see him , even on television, he was a showman with an incredible stage presence. Rest in peace.

Gotta love copycats. The Calendar Girls, those British women in their 50's through their 70's who promoted their not really nude calendar to help raise funds for cancer research have prompted an entire industry of various other groups copying them.

MILWAUKEE – Miss December is wearing nothing but a Santa hat and a smile. Oh, and holding one strategically placed cat. Chandra Gates, 39, decided the Humane Society of Jefferson County was a worthy enough cause for the 39-year-old to bare nearly all for a nude-calendar fundraiser.

"I'm shy about the picture but definitely proud of the cause," said Gates, an animal caregiver there.

The Humane Society in the city of Jefferson is one of countless nonprofit organizations around thew world selling tastefully nude 2007 calendars.

A group of women aged from mid 50s to early 70s in Yorkshire, England, pioneered the idea in 2000 when they sold a calendar of discreet nude photographs of themselves to raise money for cancer research.

The women, whose story inspired the 2003 movie "Calendar Girls," raised $2.55 million through sales of 800,000 calendars as well as book and film royalties.

There's a story about Johnny Carson and the line, "Move the damn cat", but it may just be one of those urban legends.

Oops – gotta check on the turkey.

Talks Resume With North Korea

For the first time in over a year, the six nation talks will resume with North Korea. Representatives from the United States, North Korea, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea meet in Beijing on Monday.

Head Chinese delegate Wu Dawei formally declared the talks open at a Chinese state guesthouse in Beijing, calling on envoys to discuss implementation of a September 2005 agreement in which the North pledged to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for security guarantees and aid.

"After hearing each country's opening speech, especially North Korea's opening speech, we will be able to tell where the six-party talks will go," South Korean nuclear envoy Chun Yung-woo told reporters Monday before the talks.

North Korea agreed to return to the six-nation negotiations just weeks after its Oct. 9 nuclear test, saying it wanted to discuss U.S. financial restrictions against a Macau bank where the regime held accounts.

That issue will be addressed in separate U.S.-North Korean meetings, but they were delayed until Tuesday because the North Korean delegates responsible for those talks had yet to arrive, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

The arms talks have been plagued by delays and discord since they began in August 2003.

The U.S. has sought to line up support against Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions by enlisting its neighbors — including China, Japan, Russia and South Korea — in the discussions.

The North exploited divisions among the U.S. and its partners in an effort to change the subject and buy time to develop its atomic arsenal.

It remains to be seen if these talks lead anywhere, of course. The fact that Russia announced that it will sell nuclear fuel to Iran makes it somewhat iffy for them to actually be of any real help with North Korea.  

Why Is It That The Democrats Are Thought Of…..

…..As weak on defense? Oh, yeah. It's because they are weak on defense. They haven't even taken control yet and they promptly go right back to gutting the military and defense programs like it was the Clinton administration all over again. Welcome to a September 10 mindset.

Democratic leaders are poised to gut America’s missile defense – at the same time North Korea and Iran are testing long-range missiles that can strike the U.S. and its allies, including Israel, Japan and Britain.

Meanwhile, sources inside the missile-defense community tell Pajamas Media that the Bush administration is planning to ask Congress to begin funding development of an “orbital battle station.”

With these key developments, 2007 is set to be the biggest battle of space-based weapons since President Reagan proposed “Star Wars” in 1983.

The incoming chairman of the Senate’s Armed Services Committee is Carl Levin. Levin, a Michigan Democrat, has long been a foe of missile defense. In 1980s, he worried that President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative — which aimed to develop technology to destroy Soviet missiles during all phases of flight — was “destabilizing.”

Today Sen. Levin sings the same tune in a different key. “They’ve not done the operational testing yet that is convincing,” said Senator Levin during a post-election press conference. He was referring to the Ground based Missile Defense [GMD] system being installed in Alaska and California, to defend against North Korean missiles. He added that he favors stalling purchases of interceptor missiles – vital for missile defense — until after testing is complete.

In short, Sen. Levin and other longtime opponents of missile defense plan to use “testing” – set to an unrealistically high level – to stop missile defense.

How the Game is Played

Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Frank Gaffney explains how the game works: “The idea is that we put it [missile defense] on ice until absolutely everybody is satisfied. It is a formula for not having the missile defense we need.”

Critics hope to stop missile defense by devoting its entire budget to testing, which is costly. At $100 million dollars or more per test, a test or two could easily absorb the entire Ground-based missile defense budget.

Certainly testing sounds reasonable. Why not make sure the stuff works before blowing billions on it? But the testing fixation ignores that, like software, most successful weapons systems are best debugged after being deployed. And some weapons systems were never tested at all before deployment.

Complex weapons systems have often been used successfully without proper testing. In 1940, Britain’s new air defenses — radars, ground observers, anti-aircraft guns and squadrons of Spitfires and Hurricanes — had never been tested against even a small scale simulated attack. Yet they won the Battle of Britain. Likewise in the 1991 Gulf War the first two E-8A ground surveillance radar aircraft had only just begun a long testing process when they were shipped to Saudi Arabia. During the war they performed magnificently and now these aircraft are in high demand all over the world.

At a time when lunatics like Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Amadinejad are trying to get nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them, our Democrats want to gut the programs that provide the only defense against these things. Again. Just as the system is showing real progress. Again.

In Case You Missed It

With all the enormous attention on the Kerry-tastrophe yesterday, many people may have missed a very significant development. North Korea has agreed to return to the six-party negotiations. This is a victory for the Bush administration's policies since Kim tried to detonate a nuke. It is also a slap to those who have counseled caving in and talking to Kim one-on-one – effectively rewarding his bad behavior.

The North's Foreign Ministry made only indirect mention of its underground nuclear detonation last month. Instead, it focused in an official statement on its desire to end U.S. financial restrictions by going back to six-nation arms talks that it has boycotted for a year.

Confirming other nations' reports of the Tuesday agreement, the North's Foreign Ministry said Pyongyang decided to return to negotiations "on the premise that the issue of lifting financial sanctions will be discussed and settled between the (North) and the U.S. within the framework of the six-party talks."

Washington had banned transactions between American financial institutions and Banco Delta Asia SARL — a bank in the Chinese territory of Macau — saying it was being used by North Korea for money-laundering.

The ban is believed to have blocked access to some $24 million for the North's leaders, who indulge their taste for luxury goods like cognac and fine wines while the vast majority of North Koreans live in poverty.

Live in poverty? They are starving too death. This is a very positive development, I suspect.

UPDATE: WaPo coverage. They try to spin it negative for the administration, but it is clearly a cave-in by Pyongyang.

North Korea To Rejoin Six Party Talks

Surprise: Bush's policies toward North Korea have struck pay dirt. China has announced that North Korea will return to the six party talks. They effectively caved in completely.

Chinese, U.S. and North Korean envoys to the negotiations held a day of unpublicized talks in Beijing during which North Korea agreed to return to the larger six-nation talks on its nuclear programs, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said.

"The three parties agreed to resume the six-party talks at the earliest convenient time," the Chinese statement said.

The agreement is one of the first signs of easing tensions since North Korea conducted the underground detonation on Oct. 9, defying warnings from both the United States and Japan, and its staunchest ally, China.

If the six-party talks resume, it would mark a diplomatic victory for Beijing, which in the wake of the test had argued against punishing North Korea too harshly, in order to leave open a path for diplomacy.

The people who were clamoring for the US to enter unilateral talks with North Korea have been proven to be wrong. Washington actually handled this very well indeed. They refused to yield to North Korean nuclear blackmail and kept up the pressure. This is a positive development, indeed.

South Korean Government Shakeup?

It seems that something is changing in the South Korean Government. Essentially, the entire group of people who had been in charge with relations with North Korea have tendered their resignations. These do not appear to have been accepted yet, but it may indicate a complete change in course for the government is in the works. The changes may be minor according to some experts.

Director of the National Intelligence Service Kim Seung-gyu offered his resignation to Roh on Thursday, presidential spokesman Yoon Tae-young said on Friday.

South Korea's point man on the North, Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok, and Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung tendered their resignations earlier in the week.

A shake-up of some kind had been in the offing since Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon was selected to become the next U.N. secretary-general. He is expected to leave in mid-November.

But the three resignations this week, if accepted, will result in a near complete overhaul of the team responsible for relations with the North.

Ban was talking to Chinese leaders in Beijing on Friday over how to implement U.N. sanctions imposed after the test and get the North back to talks on ending its nuclear program. China and South Korea are the closest Pyongyang has to friends.

Analysts doubted a reshuffle would mean much more than minor adjustment to the "sunshine" policy Roh inherited from his predecessor Kim Dae-jung, for which Kim won a Nobel Peace Prize.

"There won't be a fundamental change to President Roh's policy of engagement with the North," said political analyst Yu Chang-sun.

"Minister Lee Jong-seok has been the strongest advocate of the policy, so when he leaves there may be a slight change in the temperature. But when you look at the people who will likely replace him, it is difficult to anticipate a significant change.

It is still quite interesting that basically everyone has resigned here. It is also significant that South Korea has announced travel bans for North Korean officials and have implemented currency transfer controls. Frankly, the "Sunshine Policy" has not worked out any better for the South Koreans than did the "Agreed Framework" the US under Clinton implemented.

The Warlike Clintonistas Again

What is it with former Clinton officials, the Washington Post and the sudden aggressiveness that was never once evident when Clinton actually held office? This is at least the third time I have read something by a Clintonista that is completely out of character to what that administration did while in power. Today, the subject is, again, North Korea. The author is Graham Allison, former assistant secretary of defense under Clinton.  The call is basically to issue a threat that Kim's worker's paradise will cease to exist if a nuke explodes anywhere for any reason.

Effective deterrence required three components: clarity, capability and credibility. Clarity meant bright lines and unacceptable consequences. Credibility was understood to be in the eye of the beholder. How credible was the threat to trade Boston for Berlin? Never 100 percent. But U.S. forces, exercises and communication were crafted to convince Soviet leaders they dare not test it.

To date the Bush administration has demonstrably failed to deter Kim Jong Il. Successive U.S. demands that Kim not develop nuclear weapons, not test a missile and not test a nuclear bomb have been defied. In each case, the president has asserted that this would be "intolerable." Pressed to be precise about what this threat meant, however, Bush refused, responding instead, "I don't think you give timelines to dictators and tyrants." National security adviser Stephen Hadley has gone further, arguing that red lines make no sense in dealing with North Korea because "the North Koreans just walk right up to them and step over them."

Having stiffed Bush — and the world — in building a nuclear arsenal, testing a long-range missile and testing a nuclear weapon, might Kim now imagine that he could also sell nuclear weapons?

America's challenge is to prevent this act by convincing Kim that he will be held accountable for every nuclear weapon that originates in North Korea. This requires clarity, credibility about our capacity to identify the source of a bomb that explodes in one of our cities (however it is delivered by whomever) and a believable threat to respond.

Kim must be convinced that American nuclear forensics will be able to identify the molecular fingerprint of nuclear material from his Yongbyon reactor. He must feel in his gut the threat that if a nuclear weapon of North Korean origin explodes on American soil or that of a U.S. ally, the United States will retaliate precisely as if North Korea had attacked the United States with a nuclear-armed missile: with an overwhelming response that guarantees this will never happen again.

Forget the fact that China, Russia and the UN would not take such a threat lightly. Forget world reaction to the US going unilateral. Forget all the criticisms of the Bush administration for being too unilateral. Forget the fact that Clinton had a chance to stop the threat but instead resorted to massive bribery that failed utterly.

I'm actually not adverse to making it quite clear to Kim that there will be swift and certain destruction in his future if he's stupid enough to use a nuke. But it is a threat that should be made very carefully and to the right people. It should not, I think, be a broadcast to the world. So how would we know if such a warning has already been issued?

We wouldn't.

South Korea To Enforce Sanctions

South Korea will enforce a travel ban on North Korean officials, despite the North's saber-rattling. They will also control financial transactions between the two countries.

SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea said Thursday it will ban the entry of North Korean officials who fall under a U.N. travel restriction — Seoul's first concrete move to enforce sanctions imposed after the North's nuclear test.

Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok also said Seoul will control transactions and remittances relating to inter-Korean trade and investment with the North Korean officials, Yonhap news agency reported.

A U.N. committee on the sanctions, passed in response to North Korea's Oct. 9 nuclear test, has been working to outline how they will be implemented.

Meanwhile, Japan's foreign ministry on Thursday denied a news report that its government is planning a meeting with the U.S. and South Korea as early as next month to solidify a common stance on the North Korean nuclear standoff.

This is a very significant development, I suspect. There have been reports that China has stopped financial transfers to and from Kim's regime. The additional pressure from South Korea may force North Korea back to the negotiating table. I think this also took a bit of courage on the part of the South Korean government. Frankly, they are the ones who will bear the brunt if Kim goes in the other direction and kicks off a war as his desperation grows.

“No One Speaks More Authoritatively….”

"…for the Democrats on defense and national security issues than Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Jack Reed of Rhode Island", says David Broder in the Washington Post. That is how he starts off his column written to assure America that the Democrats do too have national security chops of the first degree. Honest. No, really. Unfortunately, Broder as well as his two role models miss the boat right off the bat:

In a conference call with reporters the other day, the two senators outlined the changes in U.S. policy toward North Korea and Iraq that they and their fellow Democrats would like to see. They signal to voters the kind of change a Democratic victory would mean.

In the case of North Korea, Levin called for doing something that President Bush has refused for six years to do — engage directly in talks with representatives of the communist regime.

But he put a condition on it, saying such talks should take place only "providing our allies and partners want us to do it" and only as part of an agreed-upon strategy supported by Japan, South Korea, China and Russia.

Reed, who endorsed the idea, said any direct U.S.-North Korea talks would "most likely" take place in the context of the six-power talks, now stalled over Pyongyang's defiance of the United Nations and the regime's testing of a nuclear weapon.

Levin said he believes the other nations in those six-power talks — Russia, China, Japan and South Korea — all wish the United States would talk directly with the North Koreans. Our willingness to do so would not be a sign of weakness, he said, but a way of removing an excuse the North Koreans have used to explain their obduracy.

Consider for a moment that North Korea has already – due to Bush's stance and diplomatic efforts – told the Chinese they would not test any more weapons and that they regret having done the first test. Consider for a moment that North Korea has hinted – due to Bush's stance and diplomatic efforts – that it might be ready to resume six-party talks. Consider for a moment that China has already – due to Bush's stance and diplomatic efforts – stopped all currency transfers into or out of North Korea, putting enormous strain on the rogue nation to actually step up and negotiate in good faith. Then consider for a moment that Levin and Reed are quite willing to throw all of that out of the window and give North Korea exactly what it wanted all along.

Then consider if this is the voice you want to speak authoritatively on the defense of this nation. I'll leave it to the casual reader to dissect the rest of the nonsense.

China Hardens Stance Against North Korea

This is huge. The government of China has cut off fund transfers to North Korea through its banks according to bank employees. This essentially cuts off virtually all hard currency flowing into the rogue state.

Chinese banks have stopped financial transfers to North Korea under government orders, bank employees said Friday. And at an appearance with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, China's foreign minister nudged the North to resume negotiations over its nuclear program and assured Washington that China would carry out United Nations sanctions on Pyongyang.

"We hope all relevant parties will maintain coolheadedness, adopt a prudent and a responsible approach and adhere to peaceful dialogue," Li Zhaoxing said as Rice concluded crisis talks in Asia following the North's Oct. 9 nuclear test blast.

China, which is North Korea's longtime protector, has been reluctant in the past to use economic pressure for fear Kim Jung Il's government might collapse.

But Chinese leaders were stung when the North ignored their warnings not to test-fire missiles over the summer, and again when it defied Beijing by detonating the underground blast this month. China previously had reduced food aid to North Korea amid complaints that Pyongyang had ignored Chinese interests.

The move by China's banks could deal a significant blow to the already impoverished North. China is North Korea's top trading partner — accounting for more than half its total foreign trade of less than $4 billion last year — and is a key conduit for its hard currency.

China's actions are considered key to enforcing U.N. sanctions on the North over the test, and to coaxing the North to back away from the nuclear brink and rejoin talks.

This could be a death blow to Kim Jong Il's regime. It would be a very wise idea to keep a very watchful eye on Kim right now. He may get desperate for cash in a very short time.

A Nuclear Japan?

Charles Krauthammer has a column today at the Washington Post that argues we should "let" Japan acquire nuclear weapons. Frankly, I don't think it is up to us to decide. But it is instructive to see his reasoning.

The first stop on Condoleezza Rice's post-detonation, nuclear reassurance tour was Tokyo. There she dutifully unfurled the American nuclear umbrella, pledging in person that the United States would meet any North Korean attack on Japan with massive American retaliation, nuclear if necessary.

An important message, to be sure, for the short run, lest Kim Jong Il imbibe a little too much cognac and be teased by one of his "pleasure squad" lovelies into launching a missile or two into Japan.

But Rice's declaration had another and obvious longer-run intent: to quell any thought Japan might have of going nuclear to counter and deter North Korea's bomb.

The Japanese understood this purpose well. Thus, at a joint news conference with Rice, Foreign Minister Taro Aso offered the boilerplate denial of even thinking of going nuclear: "The government of Japan has no position at all to consider going nuclear."

The impeccably polite Japanese were not about to contradict the secretary of state in her presence. Nonetheless, the very same Aso had earlier the very same day told a parliamentary committee that Japan should begin debating the issue: "The reality is that it is only Japan that has not discussed possessing nuclear weapons, and all other countries have been discussing it."

Just three days earlier, another high-ranking member of the ruling party had transgressed the same taboo and called for open debate about Japan's acquiring nuclear weapons.

The American reaction to such talk is knee-jerk opposition. Like those imperial Japanese soldiers discovered holed up on some godforsaken Pacific island decades after World War II, we continue to act as if we, too, never received news of the Japanese surrender. We applaud the Japanese for continuing their adherence to the MacArthur constitution that forever denies Japan the status of Great Power replete with commensurate military force.

His argument is mostly that Japan is a stable democracy and can be trusted with such weapons. He's right in one sense. India and Pakistan tested their nuclear weapons and the Clinton administration did nothing. The time to bar the door is long past now on those states. North Korea continued its weapons program while the Clinton administration patted itself on the back about how they had stopped the program. So why should we stop a strong ally or even discourage them?

The Chinese appear to have given North Korea, and especially Kim Jong Il himself, a rather pointed warning that another test would be a bad thing. So in one sense, the threat of a nuclear arms race has made China realize that they were playing with fire by allowing their propped up little lunatic to act freely. But if Japan does go the nuclear route, will China stop warning Kim and encourage him instead? Or will just the threat of it be enough to make them act a bit more responsibly?

Frankly, I do not want to see any more countries join this little club, there are too many members already.. On the other hand, if China and Russia see that other democracies are willing to run this kind of race, maybe they will both awaken to the fact that it is in the world's best interest to keep nations run by lunatics out of the club. If the world stands together we can turn back the nuclear ambitions of Iran. Possibly we can even turn back the clock on the North Korean program.

Oops

What exactly was in that "private message"?

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il expressed regret about his country's nuclear test to a Chinese delegation and said Pyongyang would return to international nuclear talks if Washington backs off a campaign to financially isolate the country, a South Korean newspaper reported Friday.

"If the U.S. makes a concession to some degree, we will also make a concession to some degree, whether it be bilateral talks or six-party talks," Kim was quoted as telling a Chinese envoy, the mass- circulation Chosun Ilbo reported, citing a diplomatic source in China.

Kim told the Chinese delegation that "he is sorry about the nuclear test," the newspaper reported.

The delegation led by State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan met Kim on Thursday and returned to Beijing later that day _ ahead of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's arrival in the Chinese capital Friday. China is viewed as a key nation in efforts to persuade the North to disarm, as it is the isolated communist nation's main trading partner.

We here at Blue Crab Boulevard have a pretty good guess about what the message said.