North Korea's Qaddafi nightmare

If you want to know what’s going through the mind of the North Korean regime, go back to the murder of Muammar Gaddafi. The way the North Koreans look at it, Gaddafi gave up his nuclear bomb, and lost his head. The lesson of Saddam Hussein’s end is another cautionary tale for the North Koreans. If Saddam had held onto his weapons of mass destruction–and lots of them–the Obama Administration would have had second thoughts about invading his country. Or so I’m told by a former CIA colleague, and one of the best-informed North Korean watchers around…

Nothing is for certain when it comes to North Korea, but the chances are good it will shoot something up to restore its dignity–perhaps a South Korean fishing boat or another South Korean navy vessel. Let’s hope that this is the worst, or that some accident doesn’t occur. In the meantime we’d better start thinking about how we can quietly but demonstrably figure out how to help North Korea get its “respect” back.

I recognize that this would be tantamount to political hara-kiri considering the crisis, but we may want to start thinking about letting North Korea into the ‘nuclear club. Just some sort of nominal membership: a couple bombs and regular invitations to club functions. They’re about to have a functioning bomb anyhow, so why not make the most of it? The down side to this of course is that Iran would want in the club, and then Saudi Arabia, and – I don’t – Venezuela. It’s something that would have to be worked out with the North Koreans.