Henry Sokolski says that proliferation of nuclear weapons widely across the Middle East and North Africa is looming, and that dealing effectively with North Korea now is the key to prevention. He makes a persuasive case.
On Aug. 27, the U.S. will join China, Russia, North Korea, Japan and South Korea in negotiations over how best to neutralize the North Korean nuclear threat. One country that's sure to be watching is Iran.Posted by Alan at August 20, 2003 06:20 AMEarlier this summer, I attended a meeting in Geneva that included Tehran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency and several members of Iran's Expediency Council. After the formal session, they pulled me aside. The one question--the only question--they pressed me about was what Washington planned to do about North Korea.
Since then, Iranian diplomats have been consulting European officials. Tehran has begun developing a grand negotiated nuclear bargain of its own. The stakes are high. If, like North Korea, Iran succeeds in getting the world to accept its nuclear program and is allowed to finish its nearly completed "peaceful" light water reactor (which after little more than a year of operation can make over 50 bombs worth of near weapons-grade plutonium), its neighbors are sure to follow suit.
via OpinionJournal