Pyongyang knocking.(on the right)(North Korean nuclear weapons program)

NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 15

THE North Korean nuclear bomb issue is as exasperating as any post-Soviet dilemma the U.S. has ever faced. We don't know whether Dear Leader Kim Jong Il actually has the bombs alleged, but there is no alternative to assuming that he does, and we know that he has missiles nimble enough to fly right over Japan. Great-circle-wise, Alaska is cheek by jowl with that part of the world.

There is, then, no strategy at hand that doesn't presuppose that a part of the U.S. could be attacked by North Korean bombs. But it is also clear that measured alongside the vulnerability of other targets, we are remote. From which it follows that North Korea's neighbors are in closer range and have more to fear.

For obvious reasons, the nations involved simply assume that the U.S. is going to dictate policy, though China is critical. It is a responsibility of President Bush to address the nations on the borders and persuade them that it is they who have to devise policies to cope with Kim Jong Il.

China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan are immediately affected by the rise of Pyongyang to nuclear status. It is they that need to set policy, and petition the world for relevant aid in implementing it.

The U.S. nuclear arsenal is available for punitive action, in the event Pyongyang were to launch a missile. But that is different from serving a deterrent purpose. If Dear Leader shoots off a missile, deterrence has ipso facto failed. An ensuing rainstorm of nuclear bombs made in the U.S.A. would bring devastation, but that is different from preemption, which is what the world hopes for.

We know now, from Libyan revelations, that uranium hexafluoride, which is the progenitor of the nuclear bomb, was sold by North Korea to Libya. We don't know whom else the stuff was sold to, but do know that there are other aspirant nuclear-bomb producers, including Syria, Iran, and even Egypt. It is alarming to reflect that the sale of the uranium has to mean that it was surplus to North Korea's own needs, suggesting ...