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North Korean leader Kim Jong Il observes military drill
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The North Korean lesson

All eyes on Obama as world awaits for response to North Korean nuke test

The harsh sounds of the nuclear test undertaken by North Korea resonated loudly through the corridors of power in Washington.

 

White House officials know that the actions undertaken by North Korea in recent months will require Barack Obama to come up with a creative and different solution. The sanctions imposed by the West on the Communist country were found to be wholly ineffective.

 

The White House is also quite aware of the fact that when a small and isolated country like North Korea gives the American superpower the finger, this has implications in Tehran as well. Should the US fail to stop Pyongyang, Tehran’s appetite will grow, and then it would be impossible to stop the snowball effect: Should Iran fail to halt its nuclear program, Israel would act, and if Israel acts, the Middle East will be on fire.

 

White House officials also know that in Jerusalem as well all eyes are on the US and its response: Should it fail to stop North Korea, Israel would lose the little trust it has in America’s ability to stop Iran through diplomatic means.

 

Officials in Tehran have been monitoring events in North Korea with great interest, and now they are impatiently waiting to see the punishment. Representatives of the Ayatollahs indeed condemned the use of nuclear weapons, yet officials in Washington understood well that in the absence of an appropriate response to the North Korean test, Tehran would interpret it as the West’s inability to enforce rules of play even on a small state whose existence is mostly characterized by misery.

 

Policymakers in Washington realize that it would be even harder to get Iran to engage in dialogue over its nuclear program: If North Korea disregards the West, why should Iran do it when it’s a much bigger country?

 

Immediate threat

The US expressed concern on Monday: North Korea recklessly challenges the international community, Obama declared in a special statement. North Korea’s nuclear program poses a “grave threat to the peace and security of the world and I strongly condemn their reckless action,” he said, vowing to redouble efforts to prevent Pyongyang from acquring nuclear weapons.

 

Israel too has a serious cause for concern: North Korea is indeed geographically distant from Israel, yet its cooperation with Iran and Syria constitutes an immediate threat. North Korea denied that it was involved in the activity at the bombed Syrian nuclear site, yet photographs clearly showed that scientists from Pyongyang worked alongside Syrian scientists in the compound.

 

In the past, when I visited Pyongyang, I stayed in the only hotel in town, which only hosts foreigners. The journalists stayed on one floor, while all other seven floors were occupied by Iranian engineers and scientists.

 

At this time, the president will have to decide on America’s policy vis-à-vis North Korea. He knows that Tehran will be monitoring him closely while attempting to take advantage of any response that can be interpreted as weakness. He knows that Israel too will seek to understand how Obama intends to stop Iran using diplomatic means, when he could not even restrain Pyongyang.

 


פרסום ראשון: 05.26.09, 14:35
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