The simple truth: Deterrence works. The madmen running North Korea have made it clear that they will at least try to drown the peninsula in blood if their rule is threatened.

Stopping Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program is rightly a priority because of the threat it poses to the U.S. and our allies. But it should also be a priority because, if we don’t, the regime may stagger on for another half-century of barbarous cruelty.

Eventually this dynasty of misery will end and North Koreans, starved, stunted and beaten, will crawl back into the light of civilization. My hunch is that it will not be easy to meet their gaze, nor history’s. No one will be able to claim they didn’t know what was happening, and very few of us will be able to say we did anything at all to help.